UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT    LOS  ANGELES 


PERSONAL   IDEALISM 


PERSONAL   IDEALISM 


PHILOSOPHICAL  ESSAYS  BY 
EIGHT  MEMBERS  OF  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 


EDITED    BY 


HENRY   STURT 


Hontjon 

MAC  MILL  AX    AND    CO.,   LIMITKD 

NKW  YORK:    THK  MACMILI.AN  COMPANY 

I9O2 

A  I!  rigkts  rfs(>i'rd 


a, 
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PREFACE 


THIS  volume  originated   in   the  conversations  and  discus- 
en     sions  of  a  group  of  friends  drawn  together  primarily  by 

c~ 

£..     their   membership   in    the    Oxford    Philosophical    Society. 

The    Society    was    started    in    the    spring  of    1898,    and 
oi 
0-.    among  some  of  the  most  regular  attendants  at  its  meetings 

:    a  certain  sympathy  of  view  soon  declared  itself.      In  the 

course  of  two  years  the  trend  of  opinion   had  grown   so 

definite   as   to  suggest  to  me  the  project  of  a  volume  of 

essays.      Among  those  who  seemed  likely  to  contribute  I 

circulated  a  programme  which  made  it  the  object  of  our 

volume  "  to  represent  a  tendency  in  contemporary  thinking, 

5  to  signalise  one  phase  or  aspect  in   the  development  of 

§  Oxford  idealism."      That  tendency  was  summed   up  in  a 

'  phrase  which  I   thought    I  was  originating  at  the  time   I 

!  wrote  the  programme,  though  it  seems  to  have  occurred 

independently  to  others.1     It  is  the  phrase  we  have  chosen 

for  our  title,  "  Personal   Idealism."      For  me  our  volume 

fulfils  the  purpose  with  which  it  was  projected  so  far  as  it 

develops  and  defends  the  principle  of  personality. 

Personality,  one  would  have  supposed,  ought  never  to 
have  needed  special  advocacy  in  this  self-assertive  country  of 
ours.  And  yet  by  some  of  the  leading  thinkers  of  our  day 
it  has  been  neglected  ;  while  by  others  it  has  been  bitterly 
attacked.  What  makes  its  vindication  the  more  urgent  is 


vi  PERSONAL  IDEALISM 

that  attacks  have  come  from  two  different  sides.  One 
adversary  tells  each  of  us  :  "  You  are  a  transitory  resultant 
of  physical  processes"  ;  and  the  other:  "  You  are  an  unreal 
appearance  of  the  Absolute."  Naturalism  and  Absolutism, 
antagonistic  as  they  seem  to  be,  combine  in  assuring  us 
that  personality  is  an  illusion. 

Naturalism  and  Absolutism,  then,  are  the  adversaries 
against  whom  the  personal  idealist  has  to  strive  ;  but  the 
manner  of  the  strife  must  be  different  in  each  case.  Per- 
sonal Idealism  is  a  development  of  the  mode  of  thought 
which  has  dominated  Oxford  for  the  last  thirty  years  ;  it 
is  not  a  renunciation  of  it.  And  thus  it  continues  in  the 
main  the  Oxford  polemic  against  Naturalism.  To  it  and 
to  Naturalism  there  is  no  ground  common,  except  that 
both  appeal  to  experience  to  justify  their  interpretations 
of  the  world.  Thus  against  this  adversary  the  argument 
must  take  the  form  of  showing  that  from  naturalistic 
premises  no  tolerable  interpretation  of  the  cardinal  facts 
of  our  experience  can  be  made.  If  it  be  asked  what  are 
those  cardinal  facts,  I  should  answer  :  Those  which  are 
essential  to  the  conduct  of  our  individual  life  and  the 
maintenance  of  the  social  fabric.  They  are  summarily 
recognised  in  the  credo  that  we  are  free  moral  agents  in  a 
sense  which  cannot  apply  to  what  is  merely  natural. 
Round  this  formula  of  conviction  are  grouped  the  ques- 
tions debated  with  Naturalism  in  our  volume.  They  are 
the  reality  of  human  freedom,  the  limitations  of  the  evolu- 
tionary hypothesis,  the  validity  of  the  moral  valuation, 
and  the  justification  of  that  working  enthusiasm  for  ideals 
which  Naturalism,  fatalistic  if  it  is  to  be  logical,  must 
deride  as  a  generous  illusion.  If  these  crucial  questions  be 
decided  in  our  favour,  the  system  of  Naturalism  is  con- 
demned. 

Accordingly,  where  Naturalism  confronted  us,  we  were 
not  unfrequently  obliged  to  take  the  aggressive  and  carry 


PREFACE  vii 

the  war  far  into  the  enemy's  country.  But  in  the  other 
essays  a  different  line  of  action  has  been  taken.  The 
Absolutist  is  a  more  insidious,  perhaps  more  dangerous 
adversary,  just  because  we  seem  to  have  more  in  common 
with  him.  He  professes  to  agree  with  us  in  the  funda- 
mental conviction  that  the  universe  is  ultimately  spiritual  ; 
against  the  naturalist  it  was  just  this  conviction  which  had 
to  be  vindicated.  We  decided,  then,  to  meet  the  Absolu- 
tist with  what  may  be  called  a  rivalry  of  construction. 
Absolutism  has  been  before  the  world  for  a  century,  more 
or  less.  It  has  put  forth  its  account  of  knowledge,  of 
morals,  and  of  art  ;  and  that  account,  suggestive  though  it 
is,  has  not  satisfied  the  generality  of  thinking  men.  If  the 
grounds  of  dissatisfaction  be  demanded,  I  can  only  give 
the  apparently  simple  and  hackneyed,  but  still  fundamental 
answer,  that  Absolutism  does  not  accord  with  the  facts. 
Thus,  instead  of  entering  upon  the  intricate  task  of  refuting 
Absolutism,  we  have  felt  free  to  adopt  the  more  congenial 
plan  of  offering  specimens  of  constructive  work  on  a 
principle  which  does  more  justice  to  experience.  Our 
essays  are  but  specimens.  They  indicate  lines  of  thought 
which  could  not  be  worked  out  fully  in  the  space  allowed. 
But  they  are  extensive  enough,  let  us  hope,  to  enable  the 
reader  to  judge  whether  their  general  line  of  interpretation 
is  not  more  promising  than  that  of  Absolutism. 

It  may  be  objected  that  we  are  wrong  in  assuming  that 
Absolutism  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  principle  of  per- 
sonality. In  reply  two  points  of  incompatibility  may  be 
specified  shortly;  further  particularity  is  impossible  without 
a  much  fuller  statement,  more  especially  since  Absolutism 
is  not  so  much  a  definite  system  as  an  aggregate  of 
tendencies  without  a  universally  acknowledged  expositor. 
The  two  points  in  respect  of  which  Absolutism  tends  '  to 


viii  PERSONAL   IDEALISM 

be  most  unsatisfactory  are,  first,  its  way  of  criticising  human 
experience,  not  from  the  standpoint  of  human  experience, 
but  from  the  visionary  and  impracticable  standpoint  of 
an  absolute  experience  ;  and,  secondly,  its  refusal  to 
recognise  adequately  the  volitional  side  of  human  nature. 
Both  matters  are  dealt  with  in  the  essay  on  Error  which 
stands  first  in  the  volume.  There  it  is  shown  that 
error  and  truth  are  not  dependent  upon  the  Absolute  ;  in 
other  words  that  we  can  know  with  certainty  without 
knowing  the  absolute  whole  of  Reality  ;  and  that,  if  we 
err,  it  is  by  human  criteria,  not  by  a  theory  of  the  Absolute, 
that  we  measure  the  degree  of  our  error.  Further,  in  regard 
to  volition,  the  same  essay  shows  that  error  is  relative, 
not  to  the  content  of  knowledge  only,  but  also  to  its 
intent,  />.,  the  intention  of  the  agent  in  setting  out  upon 
his  search  for  knowledge.  The  reader  may  be  left  to 
trace  for  himself  the  wider  operation  of  these  principles. 

In  conclusion  there  is  one  feature  in  our  essays  to 
which  I  would  venture  to  call  attention  as  constituting 
what  to  my  mind  is  the  most  valuable  feature  of  their 
method  ;  that  is,  the  frequency  of  their  appeal  to  ex- 
perience. The  current  antithesis  between  a  spiritual 
philosophy  and  empiricism  is  thoroughly  mischievous.  If 
personal  life  be  what  is  best  known  and  closest  to  us, 
surely  the  study  of  common  experience  will  prove  it  so. 
'  Empirical  idealism  '  is  still  something  of  a  paradox  ;  I 
should  like  to  see  it  regarded  as  a  truism. 

H.  S. 


CONTENTS 


I.    ERROR.      By    G.    F.    Stout,    M.A.,    Wilde    Reader    in 

Mental  Philosophy  i 

II.  AXIOMS  AS  POSTULATES.  By  F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  M.A., 
Fellow  and  Assistant  Tutor  of  Corpus  Christ! 
College  .  47 

III.  THE  PROBLEM  OF   FREEDOM    i.\   ITS  RELATION  TO 

PSYCHOLOGY.       By  W.    R.    Boyce  Gibson,   M.A., 
Queen's  College,  Lecturer  in  London  University      .         134 

IV.  THE  LIMITS  OF   EVOLUTION.     By  G.  E.   Underbill, 

M.A.,  Fellow  and  Senior  Tutor  of  Magdalen  College        193 
V.  ORIGIN    AND    VALIDITY    IN    ETHICS.       By    R.    R. 

Marett,  M.A.,  Fellow  and  Tutor  of  Exeter  College  .        221 
VI.  ART   AND    PERSONALITY.       By   Henry   Sturt,    M.A.. 

Queen:s  College      .....        288 
VII.  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  :  EFFORT  OR  ABSTENTION  ? 
By  F.  W.  Bussell,  D.D.,   Fellow,  Tutor,   and   Vice- 
Principal  of  Brasenose  College         .  .  .        336 
VIII.   PERSONALITY,   HUMAN  AND  DIVINE.       By  Hastings 

Rashdall,  D.Litt.,  Fellow  and  Tutor  of  New  College        369 

j\\)TE. — I'lact!  ici'itci'  /.v  responsible  solely  Jor  Ins  ou'ii  essay. 


ERROR ] 

BY  (1.   F.   STOUT 
SYNOPSIS 

i.  In  Hrror,  what  is  unreal  seems  to  be  thought  of  in  the  same  way  as  the 
real  is  thought  of  when  we  truly  know  it.  1  low  is  this  possible  ?  As 
an  essential  preparation  for  answering  this  question  we  must  first  deal 
with  another.  Do  other  modes  of  thinking  exist  besides  those  which 
can  be  properly  said  to  be  either  true  or  false  ?  There  are  two  such 
modes,  (i)  Indeterminate  or  problematic  thinking.  (2)  Thinking  of 
mere  appearance  without  affirming  it  to  be  real. 

2  and  3.  To  think  indeterminately  is  to  think  of  something  as  one  of  a  group 
of  alternatives,  without  deciding  which.  The  indeterminateness  lies  in 
not  deciding  which  ;  and  so  far  as  the  indeterminateness  extends  there 
is  neither  truth  nor  error.  Whatever  is  thus  indeterminately  thought 
of  belongs  to  the  Intent  of  consciousness.  The  term  Content  should 
be  reserved  for  what  is  determinately  presented. 

In  cognitive  process,  indeterminate  thinking  takes  the  form  of  questioning 
as  a  mental  attitude  essentially  analogous  to  questioning.  Interrogative 
thinking  is  the  way  we  think  of  something  when  we  are  interested  in 
knowing  it,  but  do  not  yet  know  it  either  truly  or  falsely.  Its  distinc- 
tive characteristic  is  that  the  decision  between  alternatives  is  sought 
for  in  the  independent  reality  of  the  total  object  in  which  we  are 
interested.  This  object  is  regarded  as  having  a  determinate  constitution 
of  its  own,  independently  of  what  we  may  think  about  it.  We  are 
active  in  cognitive  process  only  in  compelling  the  object  to  reveal  its 
nature.  The  activity  is  experimental  ;  its  result  is  determined  lor  us 
and  not  by  us. 

In  the  play  of  fancy,  on  the  contraiy,  we  do  not  seek  to  conform  our 
thought  to  the  predetermined  constitution  of  our  object.  We  select 
alternatives  as  we  please,  and  to  this  extent  make  the  object  instead  of 
adapting  ourselves  to  its  independent  nature. 

1  Throughout  this  essay  I  am  deeply  indebted  to  the  criticisms  and  .sugges- 
tions of  Professor  Cook  Wilson.  In  particular,  I  have  substantially  adopted  his 
account  of  the  distinction  Ix-tween  abstract  ti-nns  -nid  adjectives,  in  place  of  a  less 
satisfactory  view  of  my  own. 

I! 


2  G.   F.   STOUT  i 

4.  Besides  indeterminate  thinking  there  is  yet  another  mode  of  thinking 
which  is  neither  true  nor  false.  It  consists  in  thinking  of  mere  appear- 
ance without  taking  it  for  real.  This  happens,  for  example,  in  the  play  of 
fancy.  Mere  appearance  consists  in  those  features  of  an  object  of  con- 
sciousness which  are  due  merely  to  the  special  conditions,  psychological 
and  psychophysical,  of  its  presentation,  and  do  not  therefore  belong  to 
its  independent  reality. 

5  and  6.  Error  occurs  when  what  is  merely  apparent,  appears  to  belong  to 
an  independent  reality  in  the  same  way  as  its  other  real  features. 
The  conditions  under  which  this  occurs  may  be  divided  under  two 
heads,  (i)  Confusion.  (2)  Ignorance  and  inadvertence.  Ignorance 
or  inadvertence  are  present  in  every  error,  Confusion  only  in  some. 

7.  It   follows  from   the  very  nature  of  error  that   it  cannot  exist  unless  the 

mind  is  dealing  with  something  independently  real.  Hence,  some  truth 
is  presupposed  in  every  error  as  its  necessary  condition. 

8.  There  are   limits  to  the   possibility  of  error.       There   can    be    no   error 

unless  in  relation  to  a  corresponding  reality,  which  is  an  object  of 
thought  for  him  who  is  deceived.  Further,  this  reality  must  be  capable 
of  being  thought  of  without  the  qualification  which  is  said  to  be  illusory. 
Hence,  among  other  results,  we  may  affirm  that  abstract  objects  cannot 
be  illusory  unless  they  contain  an  internal  discrepancy.  For,  they  are 
considered  merely  for  themselves,  and  not  as  the  adjectives  of  any  other 
reality  in  relation  to  which  they  can  be  illusory.  So  far  as  the  abstract 
object  is  merely  a  selected  feature  of  actual  existence,  it  is  not  merely 
not  illusory  ;  it  is  real.  It  is  something  concerning  which  we  can  think 
truly  or  falsely. 

9.  But  the  constructive  activity  of  the  mind  variously  transforms  and  modifies 

the  abstract  object,  in  ways  which  may  have  no  counterpart  in  the 
actual.  To  this  extent,  the  abstract  object  may  be  relatively  unreal. 
None  the  less,  such  mental  constructions,  so  far  as  they  belong  to 
scientific  method,  are  experimental  in  their  character  and  purpose. 
They  serve  to  elicit  the  real  nature  of  the  object  as  an  actual  feature 
of  actual  existence.  Thus  abstract  thinking,  even  when  it  is  construc- 
tive, gives  rise  to  judgments  concerning  what  is  real.  These  judgments 
may  at  least  be  free  from  the  error  of  ignorance.  For  the  mind  may 
require  no  other  data  to  operate  on  in  answering  its  questions  except 
those  that  are  already  contained  in  the  formulation  of  them.  Errors 
of  confusion  and  inadvertence  may  still  occur.  But  even  these  are 
avoidable  by  simplifying  the  problems  raised.  Thus,  abstract  thinking 
yields  a  body  of  certain  knowledge. 

IO.  Certainty,  then,  is  attainable.  It  exists  when  a  question  is  made  to 
answer  itself,  so  as  to  render  doubt  meaningless.  When  this  is  so 
the  real  is  present  to  consciousness,  as  the  illusory  can  never  be. 


I.  THE  GENERAL  NATURE  OF  ERROR 

^  i.  THE  question  raised  in  the  present  essay  is  funda- 
mentally the  same  as  that  discussed  in  Plato's  The&tetus. 
The  Theictetus  may  be  described  as  a  dialogue  on  Theory 
of  Knowledge.  But  the  central  problem  did  not  take  the 
same  shape  for  Plato  as  it  does  for  most  modern  epistemo- 
locrists  since  the  time  of  Descartes.  What  the  moderns 


i  ERROR  3 

trouble  themselves  about  is  the  nature  and  possibility  of 
knowledge  in  general.  How,  they  ask,  can  a  particular 
individual  be  in  such  relation  to  a  reality  which  transcends 
and  includes  his  own  existence  as  to  know  it.  Can  he 
know  it  otherwise  than  through  the  affections  of  his  own 
consciousness  which  it  produces  ?  If  it  can  only  be  known 
in  this  way,  can  it  be  said  to  be  known  at  all  ?  Are  not 
his  own  mental  states  the  only  existences  which  are  really 
cognised  ?  Questions  of  this  sort  occupy  modern  philo- 
sophers, and  they  have  given  rise  to  the  Critique  of  Pure 
Reason,  among  other  results.  But  I  cannot  see  any 
evidence  that  in  this  form  they  gave  much  trouble  to 
Plato.  The  nature  and  possibility  of  knowledge  would 
probably  not  have  constituted  a  problem  for  him  at  all, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  existence  of  error.  That  we  can 
know  was  for  him  a  matter  of  course,  and  it  was  also  a 
matter  of  course  that  we  may  be  ignorant.  But  he  was 
puzzled  by  the  conception  of  something  intermediate  be- 
tween knowing  and  not  knowing.  If  an  object  is  present 
to  consciousness,  it  is  pro  tanto  known  ;  if  it  is  not  present 
to  consciousness,  it  is  not  known.  But  in  so  far  as  it  is 
known  there  can  be  no  error,  because  the  knowledge 
merely  consists  in  its  presence  to  consciousness.  And 
again,  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  known  there  can  be  no 
error,  for  what  is  not  known  is  not  present  to  conscious- 
ness :  it  is  to  consciousness  as  if  it  were  non-existent, 
and  therefore  the  conscious  subject  as  such  cannot 
even  make  a  mistake  concerning  it.  Hence  we  cannot 
be  in  error  either  in  respect  to  what  we  know  or  to 
what  we  don't  know,  and  there  seems  to  be  no  third 
alternative. 

This  is  Plato's  problem,  and  ours  is  fundamentally  akin 
to  it.  For  with  him  we  must  assert  that,  in  knowing,  the 
object  known  must  be  somehow  thought  of,  and  in  this 
sense  present  to  consciousness.  The  grand  lesson  of  the 
history  of  Philosophy  is  just  that  all  attempts  to  explain 
knowledge  on  any  other  assumption  tumble  to  pieces  in 
ruinous  incoherence,  and  that  from  the  nature  of  the  case 
they  must  do  so.  The  only  form  such  attempts  can  take 


4  G.  F.   STOUT  i 

is  to  treat  knowledge  simply  as  a  case  of  resemblance, 
conformity,  or  causality,  between  something  we  are 
conscious  of  and  something  we  are  not  conscious  of. 
What  we  are  conscious  of  we  may  be  said  to  know 
immediately.  But  the  something  we  are  not  conscious 
of,  how  can  that  be  known.  The  only  possible  pretence 
of  an  answer  is  that  the  knowing  of  it  is  wholly  constituted 
by  its  somehow  resembling,  or  corresponding  to  or  causing 
what  is  actually  present  to  consciousness.  But  this 
pretended  answer  in  all  its  forms  is  utterly  indefensible. 
The  supposed  conformity,  resemblance,  or  causality  is 
nothing  to  us  unless  we  are  in  some  manner  aware  of  it. 
If  I  am  to  think  of  A  as  resembling  B  or  as  corresponding 
to  it  or  as  causing  it,  I  must  think  of  B  as  well  as  of  A. 
Both  A  and  B  must  be  in  some  way  present  to  my 
consciousness. 

The  very  distinction  of  truth  and  error  involves  this. 
Truth  is  frequently  defined  as  the  agreement,  and  error 
as  the  disagreement,  of  thought  with  reality.  But  this 
definition,  taken  barely  as  it  stands,  is  defective  and  mis- 
leading. It  omits  to  state  that  the  reality  with  which  thought 
is  to  agree  or  disagree  must  itself  be  thought  of,  and  that 
the  thinker  must  intend  to  think  of  it  as  it  is.  Otherwise 
there  can  be  neither  truth  nor  error.  I  may  imagine  a 
dragon,  and  it  may  be  a  fact  that  dragons  do  not  actually 
exist.  But  if  I  do  not  intend  to  think  of  something 
which  actually  exists,  I  am  not  deceived.  And,  on  the 
same  supposition,  the  actual  existence  of  dragons  exactly 
resembling  what  I  imagine  would  not  make  my  thought 
true.  It  would  be  a  curious  coincidence  and  nothing 
more.  So  in  general,  if  we  assume  a  sort  of  inner  circle 
of  presented  objects,  and  an  outside  circle  of  unpresented 
realities,  we  may  suppose  that  the  presented  objects  are 
similar  or  dissimilar  to  the  real  existences,  or  that  in  some 
other  way  they  correspond  or  fail  to  correspond  to  them. 
But  the  resemblance  or  correspondence  would  not  be  truth 
and  the  dissimilarity  or  non-correspondence  would  not  be 
error.  Even  to  have  a  chance  of  making  a  mistake  we 
must  think  of  something  real  and  we  must  intend  to  think 


,  KRROR  5 

of  it  as  it  really  is.  The  mistake  always  consists  in 
investing  it,  contrary  to  our  intention,  with  features  which 
do  not  really  belong  to  it.  And  just  here  lies  the  essential 
problem.  For  these  illusory  features  seem  to  be  present 
to  cognitive  consciousness  in  the  same  manner  as  the  real 
features  are.1  How  then  is  it  possible  that  they  should 
be  unreal.  This  is  our  problem,  and  evidently  it  is  closely 
akin  to  that  raised  by  Plato.  But  there  is  a  difference 
and  the  difference  is  important.  Our  difficulty  arises  from 
the  fact  that  when  we  are  in  error  what  is  unreal  appears 
to  be  present  to  consciousness  /;/  the  same  manner  as 
what  is  real  is  presented  when  we  truly  know.  While 
the  erroneous  belief  is  actually  being  held,  the  illusory 
object  seems  in  no  way  to  differ  for  the  conscious 
subject  from  a  real  object.  The  distinction  only  arises 
when  the  conscious  subject  has  discovered  his  mistake, 
and  then  the  error  as  such  has  ceased  to  exist.  The 
essential  point  is  not  merely  that  both  the  illusory  and 
the  real  features  are  presented,  but  also  that  they  are 
both  presented  as  real  and  both  believed  to  be  real. 
It  is  not  enough  to  say  that  they  are  both  really 
appearances.  We  must  add  that  they  arc  both  apparent 
realities. 

Now  the  question  did  not  take  this  shape  for  Plato. 
The  difficulty  which  he  emphasises  is  not  that  what  is 
unreal  may  be  present  to  consciousness  in  tJic  same  li'ay 
as  what  is  real.  The  stumbling-block  for  him  is  rather 
that  it  is  present  to  consciousness  at  all.  For  what  is 
present  to  consciousness  must,  according  to  him,  be  known  ; 
and  if  it  is  known,  how  can  it  be  unreal  ?  On  the  other 
hand  if  it  is  not  present  to  consciousness,  it  is  simply 
unknown.  Thus  there  would  seem  to  be  no  room  for 
that  something  intermediate  between  knowing  and  being- 
ignorant  which  is  called  error. 

Before  proceeding  to  deal  with  our  own  special 
difficulty  it  will  be  well  to  examine  the  Platonic  assump- 


6  G.   F.   STOUT  i 

tion  that  whatever  is  in  any  way  present  to  consciousness, 
whatever  is  in  any  way  thought  of,  is  known — unless 
indeed  error  be  an  exception.  Besides  knowing  and 
being  mistaken  it  is  also  possible  merely  to  be  aware  of 
a  mere  appearance  which  not  being  taken  for  reality  is 
therefore  not  mistaken  for  reality.  This  is  a  point  to 
which  we  shall  recur  at  a  later  stage.  For  the  present  I 
wish  to  draw  attention  to  another  mode  of  thinking  which 
is  neither  knowing,  nor  mere  appearance,  nor  error. 

II.   INTENT  AND  CONTENT 

§  2.  Cognitive  process  involves  a  transition  or  at- 
tempted transition  from  ignorance  to  knowledge,  and  where 
we  are  trying  to  make  this  transition  there  may  be  an 
intermediate  state  which  is  neither  knowledge,  nor 
ignorance,  nor  error.  We  may  be  interested  in  knowing 
what  we  do  not  as  yet  know.  But  we  cannot  be 
interested  in  knowing  what  we  do  not  think  of  at  all. 
In  what  way  then  do  we  think  of  anything  before  we 
know  it  or  appear  to  know  it  ?  I  reply  that  it  is  an 
object  of  interrogative  or  quasi-interrogative  consciousness. 
It  is  thought  of  as  being  one  and  only  a  certain  one  of  a 
series  or  group  of  alternatives,  though  which  it  is  we  leave 
undecided. 

Sometimes  the  question  is  quite  definite.  The 
alternatives  are  all  separately  formulated.  Thus  we  may 
ask — Is  this  triangle  right-angled,  acute,  or  obtuse  ?  In 
putting  the  question  we  seek  for  only  a  certain  one  of  the 
three  alternatives,  but  until  the  answer  is  found  we  do 
not  know  which  of  them  we  are  in  search  of;  we  do  not 
know  it  although  we  think  of  it. 

Sometimes  the  question  is  only  partially  definite  ;  only 
some  alternatives  or  perhaps  only  one  of  them  is 
separately  formulated.  Thus  we  may  ask — Has  he  gone 
to  London,  or  where  else  ? 

Sometimes  again,  the  question  is  indefinite.  What  is 
sought  is  merely  thought  of  as  belonging  to  a  group  or 
series  of  alternatives  of  a  certain  kind,  which  are  not 


i  ERROR  7 

separately  formulated.  Suppose  that  I  am  watching  the 
movements  of  a  bird.  My  mental  attitude  is  essentially 
of  the  interrogative  type  even  though  I  shape  no  definite 
question.  I  am  virtually  asking, — what  will  the  bird  do 
next  ?  The  bird  may  do  this,  that,  or  the  other,  and  I 
may  not  formulate  the  alternatives.  But  whatever 
changes  in  its  position  or  posture  may  actually  occur,  are 
for  that  very  reason  what  I  am  interested  in  knowing 
before  I  know  them.  I  am  looking  for  the  determinate 
while  it  is  as  yet  undetermined  for  me.  Or,  to  take  an 
illustration  of  a  different  kind.  1  have  to  find  the 
number  which  results  from  multiplying  1947  by  413. 
At  the  outset  I  do  not  know  what  the  number  is,  and  yet 
there  is  a  sense  in  which  I  may  be  said  to  think  of  it. 
I  think  of  it  determinately  as  the  number  which  is  to  be 
obtained  by  a  certain  process.  So  far  I  may  be  said  to 
know  about  it.  But  the  knowledge  about  it  is  not 
knowledge  of  what  it  is.  Yet  this  is  what  I  aim  at 
knowing,  and  therefore  I  must  in  some  sense  think  of  it. 
I  think  of  it  indeterminately.  I  think  of  it  as  being  a 
certain  one  of  a  series  of  alternative  numbers,  which  I  do 
not  separately  formulate. 

So  far  I  have  considered  only  cases  in  which  know- 
ledge is  sought  before  it  is  found,  so  that  the  transition 
from  the  indeterminate  to  the  determinate  comes  as  the 
answer  to  a  question  definite  or  indefinite.  But  there  are 
instances  in  which  this  is  not  so.  There  are  instances 
in  which  the  answer  seems  to  forestall  the  question.  A 
picture  falls  while  I  am  writing.  I  was  not  previously 
thinking  of  the  picture  at  all,  but  of  something  quite 
different.  My  attention  is  only  drawn  to  the  picture 
by  its  fall.  But  the  picture  then  becomes  distinguished 
as  subject  from  its  fall  as  predicate.  This  means  that 
the  picture  is  thought  of  as  it  might  have  existed  for 
consciousness  before  the  fall  took  place.  It  is  regarded 
as  relatively  undetermined  and  the  predicate  as  a  deter- 
mination of  it.  The  fall  of  the  picture  comes  before 
consciousness  as  if  it  were  the  answer  to  a  question.1 

1  Of    course     if    we;     suppose    that     the     noise    of    the     fall     first     .iwnkens 


8  G.   F.  STOUT  i 

The  relation  of  subject  and  predicate  is  essentially 
analogous  to  what  it  would  have  been  if  we  had  pre- 
viously been  watching  to  see  what  would  happen  to  the 
picture. 

In  this  and  similar  instances,  there  is  an  actual  dis- 
tinction of  subject  and  predicate  essentially  analogous  to 
that  of  question  and  answer.  But  in  a  very  large  part 
of  our  cognitive  experience  no  such  distinction  is  actually 
made.  I  look,  let  us  say,  at  my  book-shelves,  and  I  am 
aware  of  the  books  as  being  on  the  shelves  and  of  the 
shelves  as  containing  the  books.  But  I  do  not  formulate 
verbally  or  otherwise  the  propositions  : — "  The  books  are 
on  the  shelves,"  or  "  The  shelves  contain  the  books." 
Neither  the  books  nor  the  shelves  are  regarded  as  re- 
latively indeterminate  and  as  receiving  fresh  determination 
in  the  fact  that  one  of  them  stands  in  a  certain  relation  to 
the  other.  Again,  I  may  meet  a  friend  and  begin  to  talk- 
to  him  on  some  political  topic,  proceeding  on  the  assump- 
tion that  he  agrees  with  me.  I  find  that  he  does  not, 
and  only  then  do  I  wake  up  to  the  fact  that  I  have  been 
making  an  assumption.  And  it  is  only  at  this  point  that 
the  distinction  of  subject  and  predicate  emerges.  Such 
latent  or  unformulated  presuppositions  are  constantly 
present  in  our  mental  life.  They  are  constantly  involved 
in  the  putting  of  questions.  They  are  constantly  involved 
in  the  conception  of  the  subjects  to  which  we  attach  pre- 
dicates, and  also  in  the  conception  of  the  predicates. 
The  nature,  function,  and  varieties  of  this  kind  of  cog- 
nitive consciousness  we  cannot  here  discuss.  It  is  suffi- 
cient for  our  purpose  to  note  that  all  such  cognitions  are 
capable  of  being  translated  into  the  subject -predicate 
form,  without  loss  or  distortion  of  meaning.  Further,  this 
translation  is  necessary  if  we  are  to  submit  them  to 
logical  examination.  In  particular,  we  cannot  otherwise 
deal  with  any  question  relating  to  their  truth  or  falsity. 
The  disjunction,  true  or  false,  does  not.  present  itself  to 

the  question — \Yhat  is  falling?  Ijefore  we  think  of  the  picture,  the  fall  is  subject 
and  the  picture  predicate.  Rut  I  cto  not  thi.'l;  that  this  account  of  the  matter 
always  holds  good  in  such  cases. 


i  ERROR  9 

consciousness  until  we  distinguish  subject  and  predicate. 
In  the  absence  of  this  distinction  there  is  only  uncon- 
scious presupposing  or  assuming.  But  when  the  dis- 
tinction is  made  it  is  essentially  analogous  to  that  of 
question  and  answer. 

So  far  as  our  thought  is  indeterminate  there  can  be 
neither  truth  nor  error.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that 
our  thought  is  never  purely  indeterminate.  A  question 
always  limits  the  range  of  alternatives  within  which  its 
answer  is  sought  ;  and  the  question  itself  may  be  infected 
with  error.  A  man  for  instance  may  set  out  to  find  the 
square  root  of  two.  In  the  formulation  of  the  question 
he  leaves  it  undetermined  what  special  numerical  value 
the  root  of  two  has.  But  he  assumes  that  it  has  some 
determinate  numerical  value.  To  this  extent  his  question 
is  infected  with  error,  and  it  can  have  no  real  answer 
unless  it  is  reshaped.  If  he  seems  to  himself  to  find  an 
answer,  he  does  but  commit  a  further  error.  What  he 
thinks  he  wants  to  know,  is  not  what  he  really  wants  to 
know.  Hence  in  finding  what  he  really  wants  to  know 
he  must  alter  the  form  of  his  question. 

This  leads  me  to  make  a  suggestion  in  terminology. 
The  term  'content  of  thought'  is  perpetually  being  used 
with  perplexing  vagueness.  I  propose  to  restrict  its 
application.  We  cannot,  without  doing  violence  to 
language,  say  that  the  indeterminate,  as  such,  is  part  of 
the  content  of  thought.  For  it  is  precisely  what  the 
thought  does  not  contain,  but  only  intends  to  contain. 
On  the  contrary,  we  can  say  with  perfect  propriety  that  it 
belongs  to  the  intent  of  the  thought.  It  is  what  the 
conscious  subject  intends  when  its  selective  interest 
singles  out  this  or  that  object. 

From  this  point  of  view  we  can  deal  aclvantageously 
with  a  number  of  logical  and  epistemological  problems. 
For  instance  it  throws  light  on  the  proposed  division  of 
propositions  into  analytic  and  synthetic.  Whatever  can 
be  regarded  as  a  judgment,  whether  expressed  in  words 
or  not,  is  and  must  be  both  analytic  and  synthetic.  It  is 
synthetic  as  regards  content  and  analytic  as  regards  intent. 


io  G.  R  STOUT  i 

While  I  am  watching  a  bird,  whatever  movement  it  may 
make  next  belongs  to  the  intent  of  my  thought,  even  before 
it  occurs.  It  is  what  I  intend  to  observe.  But  the  special 
change  of  posture  or  position  does  not  enter  into  the  con- 
tent of  my  thought  until  it  actually  takes  place  under  my 
eyes.  Hence  each  step  in  the  process  is  synthetic  as  re- 
gards content  though  analytic  as  regards  intent.  This  holds 
generally  for  all  predication  which  is  not  mere  tautology. 
If  the  predicate  did  not  belong  to  the  intent  of  its  subject, 
there  would  be  nothing  to  connect  it  with  this  special 
subject  rather  than  with  any  other.  If  it  already  formed 
part  of  the  content  there  would  be  no  advance  and  there- 
fore no  predication  at  all. 

From  the  same  point  of  view,  we  may  regard  error  as 
being  directly  or  indirectly  a  discrepancy  between  the 
intent  and  content  of  cognitive  consciousness. 

Sometimes  the  discrepancy  lies  in  a  latent  assumption. 
The  initial  question  which  determines  the  intent  of  thought 
may  itself  be  infected  with  error,  as  in  the  example  of  a 
man  setting  out  to  find  the  square  root  of  two.  In  such 
cases  it  would  seem  that  a  man  cannot  reach  truth 
unless  he  finds  something  which  he  does  not  seek. 
But  the  reason  is  that  there  is  already  a  discrepancy 
between  intent  and  content  in  the  very  formulation 
of  his  initial  question.  The  man  is  interested  in 
formulating  an  answerable  question,  and  he  fails  to 
do  so.  Similarly  wherever  error  occurs  there  is  always 
an  express  or  implied  discrepancy  between  intent  and 
content. 

It  follows  that  truth  and  error  are  essentially  relative 
to  the  interest  of  the  subject.  To  put  a  question  seriously 
is  to  want  to  know  the  answer.  A  person  cannot  be  right 
or  wrong  without  reference  to  some  interest  or  purpose. 
A  man  wanders  about  a  town  which  is  quite  unfamiliar 
without  any  definite  aim  except  to  pass  the  time.  Just 
in  so  far  as  he  has  no  definite  aim  he  cannot  go  astray. 
He  is  equally  right  whether  he  takes  a  turn  which  leads 
to  the  market-place  or  one  which  leads  to  the  park.  If 
he  wants  to  amuse  himself  by  sight-seeing  it  may  be  a 


i  ERROR  1 1 

mistake  for  him  to  go  in  this  direction  rather  than  in  that. 
But  if  he  does  not  care  for  sight-seeing,  he  cannot  commit 
this  error.  On  the  other  hand  if  his  business  demands 
that  he  should  reach  the  market-place  by  a  certain  time, 
it  may  be  a  definite  blunder  for  him  to  take  the  turn 
which  leads  to  the  park.  In  this  example  the  interest  is 
primarily  practical  and  the  blunder  is  a  practical  blunder. 
But  the  same  principle  holds  good  for  all  Tightness  and 
wrongness  even  in  matters  which  appear  purely  theoretical. 
Our  thought  can  be  true  or  false  only  in  relation  to  the 
object  which  we  mean  or  intend.  And  we  mean  or 
intend  that  object  because  we  are,  from  whatever  motive, 
interested  in  it  rather  than  in  other  things.  If  a  man 
says  that  the  sun  rises  and  sets,  he  may  refer  only  to  the 
behaviour  of  the  visible  appearance  of  the  sun,  as  seen 
from  the  earth's  surface.  In  that  case  you  do  not  convict 
him  of  error  when  you  remind  him  that  it  is  the  earth 
which  moves  and  not  the  sun.  For  you  are  referring  to 
something  in  which  he  was  not  interested  when  he  made 
the  statement.  Error  is  defeat.  We  mean  to  do  one 
thing  and  we  actually  do  another.  So  far  as  the  error  is 
merely  theoretical  what  we  mean  to  do  is  to  think  of  a 
certain  thing  as  it  is,  and  what  we  actually  do  is  to  think 
of  it  as  it  is  not. 

This  implies  that  the  thing  we  think  of  has  a  constitu- 
tion of  its  own  independent  of  our  thinking — a  constitution 
to  which  our  thinking  may  or  may  not  conform.  A 
question  is  only  possible  on  the  assumption  that  it  has 
an  ans\vcr  predetermined  by  the  nature  of  the  object  of 
inquiry.  It  is  this  feature  which  marks  off  the  interroga- 
tive consciousness  peculiar  to  cognitive  process  from  the 
form  of  indeterminate  thinking  which  is  found  in  the  play 
of  fancy.  While  the  play  of  fancy  is  proceeding,  its 
object  is  at  any  moment  only  partially  determined  in 
consciousness,  and  each  step  in  advance  consists  in  fixing 
on  one  alternative  to  the  exclusion  of  others.  But  the 
intent  of  imaginative  thinking  is  different  from  that  of 
cognitive,  and  consequently  the  decision  between  com- 
peting alternatives  is  otherwise  made.  An  examination 


12  G.  F.  STOUT  i 

of   this    difference   will    carry    us    a   step   farther    in    our 
inquiry. 

III.  IMAGINATIVE  AND  COGNITIVE  PROCESS 

§  3.  Imaginary  objects  as  such  are  creatures  of  our  own 
making.  When  we  make  up  a  fairy-tale  for  a  child  the 
resulting  object  of  consciousness  is  merely  the  work  of 
the  mind,  and  it  is  not  taken  by  us  for  anything  else. 
In  the  development  of  intent  into  content,  of  indeterminate 
into  determinate  thinking,  the  decision  among  alternatives 
is  made  merely  as  we  please,  whatever  be  our  motive. 
It  depends  purely  on  subjective  selection  so  far  as  the 
process  is  imaginative. 

It  is  necessary  to  add  this  saving  clause.  For  no 
imaginative  process  is  merely  imaginative.  Even  in  the 
wildest  play  of  fancy,  the  range  of  subjective  selection  is 
restricted  by  limiting  conditions.  Gnomes  must  not  be 
made  to  fly,  or  giants  to  live  in  flower-cups.  Thackeray's 
freedom  of  selection  in  composing  Vanity  Fair  was 
circumscribed  by  his  purpose  of  giving  a  faithful  repre- 
sentation of  certain  phases  of  human  life.  In  so  far  as 
such  limiting  conditions  operate,  the  mental  attitude  is 
not  merely  imaginative.  It  is  imaginative  only  in  so  far 
as  the  limiting  conditions  still  leave  open  a  free  field  for 
the  loose  play  of  subjective  selection. 

This  freedom  of  subjective  selection  is  absent  in 
cognitive  process.  Instead  of  deciding  between  alterna- 
tives according  to  his  own  good  pleasure,  the  conscious 
subject  seeks  to  have  a  decision  imposed  upon  him 
independently  of  his  wish  or  will.  It  is  true  that 
cognitive  process  may  include  a  varied  play  of  sub- 
jective selection.  But  there  is  one  thing  which  must 
not  be  determined  by  subjective  selection.  It  is  the 
deciding  which  among  a  group  of  alternative  qualifica- 
tions is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  object  we  are  interested 
in  knowing. 

In  cognitive  process  as  such  we  arc  active  merely  in 
order  that  we  may  be  passive.  Our  activity  is  successful 


i  ERROR  i 3 

only  in  so  far  as  its  result  is  determined  for  us  and  not 
by  us. 

In  this  sense  we  may  say  that  the  work  of  the  mind 
when  its  interest  is  cognitive  has  an  experimental  character. 
What  is  ordinarily  called  an  experiment  is  a  typical  case 
of  this  mental  attitude.  A  chemist  applies  a  test  to  a 
substance.  The  application  of  the  test  is  his  own  doing. 
But  the  result  does  not  depend  on  him  :  he  must  simply 
await  it.  Yet  he  was  active  only  in  order  to  obtain  this 
result.  He  was  active  that  he  might  enable  himself  to 
be  passive.  He  was  active  in  order  to  give  the  object  an 
opportunity  of  manifesting  its  own  independent  nature. 
His  activity  essentially  consists  in  the  shaping  of  a 
question  so  as  to  wrest  an  answer  from  the  object  of 
inquiry.  In  all  cognitive  process  the  mental  attitude  is 
essentially  analogous.  Suppose  that  I  am  interested  in 
knowing  whether  any  number  of  terms  in  the  series 
i  +  \  +  j  +  -^,  etc.,  have  for  their  sum  the  number  2.  I 
may  proceed  by  actually  adding.  This  is  a  mental 
experiment,  but  it  turns  out  to  be  unsuccessful.  It 
does  not  transform  my  initial  question  into  a  shape  in 
which  it  wrests  its  own  answer  from  its  object.  By 
adding  any  given  number  of  terms  I  find  that  the  sum  is 
less  than  two.  But  the  doubt  always  remains  whether 
by  taking  more  terms  I  may  not  reach  a  different  result. 
Under  this  mode  of  treatment  my  object  refuses  to  mani- 
fest its  nature  so  as  to  answer  my  question.  I  fail  to 
obtain  an  answer  by  waiting  for  data  which  I  have  not 
got — by  waiting  till  some  number  of  terms  shall  present 
itself  having  2  for  their  sum.  Accordingly  I  re- 
sort to  another  form  of  experiment.  I  appeal  to  ex- 
perience a  priori,  instead  of  experience  a  posteriori. 
Instead  of  looking  for  data  which  I  have  not  got,  I  try 
to  obtain  an  answer  by  manipulating  the  data  which  1 
already  possess  in  the  very  conception  of  the  series  as 
such,  and  of  the  number  2.  I  fix  attention  on  the  form 
of  serial  transition,  and  I  inquire  whether  this  is  capable 
of  yielding  a  term  such  as  will  make  2  when  it  is 
added  to  the  sum  of  preceding  terms.  I  find  that 


i4  G.  F.  STOUT  i 

such  a  term  must  be  equal  to  the  term  that  precedes 
it,  and  that  according  to  the  law  of  the  series  each 
term  is  the  half  of  that  which  precedes  it.  Hence 
no  number  of  terms  can  have  2  as  their  sum.  My 
experiment  is  successful.  It  translates  my  question 
into  a  shape  in  which  it  compels  an  answer  from  its 
object. 

Suppose  again  that  I  am  verifying  the  statement  that 
two  straight  lines  cannot  enclose  a  space.  I  conceive 
two  lines  as  straight,  ignoring  all  else  but  their  being 
lines  and  their  being  straight.  I  then  consider  the 
varying  changes  of  relative  position  of  which  they  are 
capable,  and  I  find  by  trial  that  only  certain  general 
kinds  of  variation  are  possible.  If  I  think  of  them  as 
not  meeting  at  all,  they  refuse  to  enclose  a  space.  The 
same  is  true  when  they  are  thought  of  as  meeting  at  one 
point  only.  But  if  they  meet  at  more  than  one  point 
they  insist  on  coinciding  at  all  points.  This  result  of  my 
experiment  does  not  depend  on  my  activity  ;  it  is  deter- 
mined for  me  by  the  nature  of  the  object  on  which  I 
operate,  by  the  constitution  of  space  and  of  straight 
lines. 

It  will  be  seen  that  I  have  included  under  the  term 
experiment  two  very  different  groups  of  cases.  To  the 
first  group  belong  such  instances  as  the  application  of  a 
chemical  test.  Their  distinctive  character  is  that  an 
answer  to  the  question  raised  cannot  be  obtained  merely 
by  operating  on  the  data  which  are  already  presupposed 
in  putting  the  question  itself.  When  I  am  watching  to 
see  what  a  bird  will  do  next,  the  decision  does  not  come 
merely  from  a  consideration  of  what  I  already  know 
about  the  bird.  The  decision  is  given  by  a  posteriori 
experience.  On  the  other  hand,  if  I  want  to  know 
whether  two  straight  lines  can  enclose  a  space  I  need  no 
data  except  lines,  straightness,  and  space  as  such.  I  can 
shape  my  question  by  mentally  operating  on  these  data 
so  that  it  answers  itself.  The  decision  is  given  by  a 
priori  experience.  But  both  results  obtained  a  priori  and 
those  obtained  a  posteriori  are  equally  due  to  an  experi- 


i  ERROR  15 

mental  process,  to  an   activity  that  exists  in  order  that  it 
may  be  determined  by  its  object. 

IV.  MERE  APPEARANCE  AND  REALITY 

§  4.  All  error  consists  in  taking  for  real  what  is  mere 
appearance.  In  order  to  solve  the  problem  of  error  we 
must  therefore  discover  the  meaning  of  this  distinction 
between  mere  appearance  and  reality.  We  are  now  in  a 
position  to  take  this  step.  We  have  a  clue  in  the 
foregoing  discussion  of  the  nature  of  the  imaginary  object 
as  such.  The  imaginary  object  as  such  is  unreal  and  we 
see  quite  clearly  wherein  its  unreality  consists.  It  is 
unreal  inasmuch  as  its  imaginary  features  as  such  have 
no  being  independently  of  the  psychical  process  by  which 
they  come  to  be  presented  to  the  individual  consciousness. 
They  are  merely  the  work  of  the  mind,  merely  the  product 
of  subjective  selection  and  they  are  therefore  mere 
appearances.  But  though  they  are  mere  appearances, 
they  are  not  therefore  illusory  or  deceptive.  They  are 
not  deceptive,  because  they  are  not  taken  for  real. 
While  the  purely  imaginative  attitude  is  maintained, 
they  are  not  taken  either  for  real  or  unreal.  The  question 
does  not  arise,  because  in  imagination  as  such  we  are  not 
interested  in  the  constitution  of  an  object  as  independent 
of  the  process  by  which  we  come  to  apprehend  it.1  On 
the  other  hand  when  the  question  is  raised  whether  what 
we  merely  imagine  has  this  independent  being,  we  commit 
no  error  if  we  refuse  to  affirm  that  it  has.  Mere  appear- 
ance is  not  error  so  long  as  we  abstain  from  confusing  it 
with  reality. 

The  imaginary  object  is  only  one  case  of  mere  appear- 
ance. It  is  the  case  in  which  the  nature  of  what  is 
presented  to  consciousness  is  determined  merely  by  the 
psychical  process  of  subjective  selection.  lUit  there  is 
always  mere  appearance  when  and  so  far  as  the  nature  of 

1  The  fact  that  the  object  is  merely  imaginary  is  not  attended  to.  We  do  not 
contrast  it  as  unreal  with  something  else  as  real.  If  we  are  externally  reminded 
of  its  unreality,  the  flow  of  fancy  i.s  disturbed.  The  flow  of  fancy  is  also  disturbed 
if  we  are  called  on  to  believe  that  our  fancies  are  I'aets.  The  whole  question  of 
reality  or  unreality  is  foreign  to  the  imaginative  attitude. 


1 6  G.   F.  STOUT  i 

a  presented  object  is  determined  merely  by  the  psycho- 
logical conditions  of  its  presentation,  whatever  these  may 
be.  There  is  always  mere  appearance  when  and  so  far 
as  a  presented  object  has  features  due  merely  to  the 
special  conditions  of  the  flow  of  individual  consciousness 
as  one  particular  existence  among  others,  connected  with 
a  particular  organism  and  affected  by  varying  circum- 
stances of  time  and  place. 

In  ordinary  sense-perception  the  thing  perceived  is 
constantly  presented  under  modifications  due  to  the 
varying  conditions  of  the  perceptual  process.  But  what 
we  are  interested  in  knowing  is  the  thing  so  far  as  it  has 
a  constitution  of  its  own  independent  of  these  conditions. 
Hence  whatever  qualifications  of  the  object  are  recognised 
as  having  their  source  merely  in  the  conditions  of  its 
presentation  are  pro  tanto  contrasted  with  its  reality  as 
being  merely  its  appearances. 

An  object  looked  at  through  a  microscope  is  presented 
as  much  larger  and  as  containing  far  more  detail  than  when 
seen  by  the  naked  eye.  But  the  thing  itself  remains  the 
same  size  and  contains  just  the  same  amount  and  kind  of 
detail.  The  difference  is  due  merely  to  conditions  affect 
ing  the  process  of  perception,  and  it  is  therefore  merely 
apparent.  On  the  other  hand,  the  details  which  become 
visible  when  we  use  the  microscope,  and  which  were 
previously  invisible,  are  ascribed  to  the  real  object.  The 
parts  of  the  object  being  viewed  under  uniform  perceptual 
conditions,  whatever  differences  are  presented  must  be  due 
to  it,  and  not  to  the  conditions  of  its  presentation.  The 
visible  extension  of  a  surface  increases  or  diminishes 
according  as  I  approach  or  recede  from  it,  and  the  visible 
configuration  of  things  varies  according  to  the  point  of 
view  from  which  I  look  at  them.  But  these  changes 
being  merely  due  to  the  varying  position  of  my  body 
and  its  parts  are  regarded  as  mere  appearances  so  far 
as  they  are  noted  at  all.1  If  I  close  my  eyes  or  look 

1  To  a  large  extent  they  pass  unnoted.  We  have  acquired  the  habit  of 
ignoring  them.  So  far  as  this  is  the  case,  they  are  not  apprehended  as  appear- 
ances of  the  thing  perceived. 


i  ERROR  17 

away,  objects,  previously  seen,  disappear  from  view.  But 
this  being  due  merely  to  the  closing  of  my  eyes  or  my 
turning  them  in  another  direction  is  no  real  change  in 
the  things.  They  are  really  just  as  they  would  have  been 
if  I  had  continued  to  look  at  them. 

It  is  important  to  notice  that  in  cases  of  this  kind  the 
mere  appearance  is  not  to  be  identified  with  any  actual 
sense-presentation.  The  appearance  is  due  to  a  certain 
interpretation  of  the  sensible  content  of  perception, 
suggested  by  previous  experience.  When  we  see  a  stick 
partially  immersed  in  a  pool,  the  visual  presentation 
is  such  as  to  suggest  a  bend  in  the  stick  itself.  Even 
while  we  are  denying  that  the  stick  itself  is  bent,  we  are 
thinking  of  a  bend  in  it.  Otherwise  the  act  of  denial 
would  be  impossible.  This  being  understood,  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  all  cases  of  mere  appearance  are  in  principle 
analogous  to  the  examples  drawn  from  sense-perception. 
Mere  appearance  exists  wherever  anything  is  thought  of 
as  having  a  character  which  does  not  belong  to  it  inde- 
pendently of  the  psychical  process  by  which  it  is  appre- 
hended. Unless  this  character  is  affirmed  of  its  inde- 
pendent reality,  there  is  no  error.  If  a  man  denies  that 
two  lines  are  commensurable,  or  if  he  questions  whether 
they  are  so  or  not,  their  commensurableness  must  have 
been  suggested  to  his  mind.  If  the  lines  are  really 
incommensurable,  this  suggestion  is  mere  appearance. 
Should  he  affirm  them  to  be  commensurable  he  is  in 
error. 

We  now  pass  to  two  important  points  of  principle. 
In  the  first  place  it  should  be  clearly  understood  that 
mere  appearance  is  a  qualification  of  the  object  appre- 
hended and  not  of  the  mind  which  apprehends  it.  There 
is  here  a  complication  clue  to  an  ambiguity  in  the  term, 
appearance.  It  may  mean  either  the  presenting  of  a 
certain  appearance  or  the  appearance  presented.  The  last 
sense  is  that  in  which  I  have  hitherto  used  the  word  in 
speaking  of  mere  appearance.  A  stick,  partly  immersed 
in  a  pool,  appears  bent  in  the  sense  that  it  presents  the 
appearance  of  being  bent.  The  bend  is  the  appearance 

C 


1 8  G.  F.  STOUT  i 

presented.  Now  the  presenting  of  this  appearance  is  an 
adjective  of  the  stick  as  an  independent  reality.  The 
stick  which  is  really  straight  really  presents  the  appearance 
of  being  bent.  It  does  not  merely  appear  to  appear 
bent :  it  really  appears  so.  Given  the  psychological  and 
psychophysical  conditions  of  its  presentation,  it  is  part  of 
its  independently  real  nature  that  it  should  wear  this 
appearance.  But  the  apparent  bend  is  not  a  qualifica- 
tion of  the  independently  real  stick.  It  is  a  qualification 
of  a  total  object  constituted  by  the  real  stick  so  far  as  it 
is  present  to  consciousness  and  also  by  certain  other 
presented  features  which  are  due  merely  to  the  special 
conditions  under  which  the  real  stick  is  apprehended. 
Mere  appearance  is  in  no  sense  an  adjective  of  the  cogni- 
tive subject.  The  person  to  whom  a  straight  staff  appears 
as  bent  when  it  is  partially  dipped  in  a  pool  is  not  himself 
apparently  bent  on  that  account,  either  bodily  or  mentally. 
He  who  imagines  a  golden  mountain  is  not  himself  the 
appearance  of  a  golden  mountain  :  his  psychical  processes 
are  not  apparently  golden  or  mountainous.  The  existence 
of  mere  appearance  is  not  that  of  a  psychical  fact  or  event 
except  in  the  special  case  where  the  real  object  thought 
of  happens  to  be  itself  of  a  psychical  nature. 

In  the  second  place,  the  distinction  between  mere 
appearance  and  reality  is  relative  to  the  special  object  we 
are  interested  in.  In  ordinary  sense-perception  we  are 
interested  in  the  objects  perceived  so  far  as  they  have  a 
constitution  independent  of  the  variable  conditions  bodily 
and  mental  of  the  perceptual  process.  Contrast  this  with 
the  special  case  of  a  beginner  learning  to  draw  from 
models.  For  him  what  in  ordinary  sense-perception  is 
mere  appearance  becomes  the  reality.  He  has  to  repro- 
duce merely  what  the  object  looks  like  from  the  point  of 
view  at  which  he  sees  it.  And  he  finds  this  a  hard  task. 
The  visual  presentation  is  apt  to  be  apprehended  by  him 
as  having  qualifications  which  do  not  belong  to  its  own 
independent  constitution,  but  are  merely  due  to  the 
conditions  of  his  own  psychical  processes  in  relation  to  it. 
His  established  habit  of  attending  only  to  physical 


i  ERROR  19 

magnitude  and  configuration  leads  him  to  think  of 
physical  fact  even  in  attempting  to  think  only  of  the 
sensory  presentation.  Thus  a  child  in  drawing  the  profile 
of  a  face  will  put  in  two  eyes.  But  the  physical  fact  so 
far  as  it  is  unseen  does  not  belong  to  the  reality  of  the 
visual  presentation.  It  is  therefore  mere  appearance 
relatively  to  this  reality,  and  in  so  far  as  it  is  confused 
with  this  reality,  it  is  not  only  mere  appearance  but  error. 

V.  SPECIAL  CONDITIONS  OF  ERROR 

§  5,  Having  defined  what  we  mean  by  mere  appear- 
ance we  have  now  only  one  more  step  to  take  in  order  to 
account  for  error.  We  have  to  show  how  the  mere  appear- 
ance of  anything  comes  to  be  confused  with  its  reality. 

It  is  clear  from  the  previous  discussion  that  there  can 
be  neither  truth  nor  falsehood  except  in  so  far  as  the 
mind  is  dealing  with  an  object  which  has  a  constitution 
predetermined  independently  of  the  psychical  process 
by  which  it  is  cognised. 

Such  logical  puzzles  as  the  Litigiosus  and  Crocodilus 
involve  an  attempt  to  affirm  or  deny  something  which 
is  not  really  predetermined  independently  of  the  affirma- 
tion or  denial  of  it.  In  the  Litigiosus  the  judgment  to 
be  formed  is  supposed  to  be  part  of  the  reality  to  which 
thought  must  adjust  itself  in  forming  it.  Euathlus  was 
a  pupil  of  Protagoras  in  Rhetoric.  He  paid  half  the  fee 
demanded  by  his  teacher  before  receiving  lessons  and 
agreed  to  pay  the  remainder  after  his  first  lawsuit  if 
he  won  it.  His  first  lawsuit  was  one  in  which  Protagoras 
sued  him  for  the  money.  The  jury  found  themselves  in 
what  appeared  a  hopeless  perplexity.  It  seemed  as  if 
they  could  not  affirm  either  side  to  be  in  the  right  without 
putting  that  side  in  the  wrong.  The  difficulty  arose  from 
the  attempt  to  conform  their  decision  to  a  determination 
of  the  real  which  had  no  existence  independently  of  the 
decision  itself.  Apart  from  the  judgment  which  they 
were  endeavouring  to  form,  the  reality  was  indeterminate 
and  it  could  not  therefore  determine  their  thought  in  the 


20  G.  F.  STOUT  i 

process  of  judging.  The  Crocodilus  illustrates  the  same 
principle  in  a  different  way.  A  crocodile  had  seized  a 
child,  but  promised  the  mother  that  if  she  told  him  truly 
whether  or  not  he  was  going  to  give  it  back,  he  would 
restore  it.  There  would  be  no  difficulty  here  if  the 
mother's  guess  were  supposed  to  refer  to  an  intention 
which  the  crocodile  had  already  formed.  But  he  is 
assumed  to  hold  himself  free  to  regulate  his  conduct 
according  to  what  she  may  happen  to  say,  and  so  to 
falsify  her  statement  at  will.  There  is  therefore  no 
predetermined  reality  to  which  her  thought  can  conform 
or  fail  to  conform  ;  which  alternative  is  real,  is  not  pre- 
determined independently  of  her  own  affirmation  of  one 
of  them.  Hence  an  essential  condition  of  either  true  or 
false  judgment  is  wanting.  One  consequence  of  the 
general  principle  is  that  a  proposition  cannot  contain  any 
statement  concerning  its  own  truth  or  falsity.  Before  the 
proposition  is  made  in  one  sense  or  another  its  own 
truth  or  falsity  is  not  a  predetermined  fact  to  which 
thought  can  adjust  itself.  Thus  if  a  man  says,  "  The 
statement  I  am  now  making  is  false,"  he  is  not  making 
a  statement  at  all.  On  the  other  hand,  he  would  be 
speaking  significantly  and  truly  if  he  said  "  The  statement 
I  am  now  making  contains  nine  words."  For  he  can 
count  each  word  after  determining  to  use  it.  His  pre- 
cedent determination  to  use  the  word  is  an  independent 
fact  which  he  does  not  make  in  the  act  of  affirming  it. 

For  error  to  exist  the  mind  must  work  in  such  a  way 
as  to  defeat  its  own  purpose.  Its  interest  must  lie  in 
conforming  its  thought  to  the  predetermined  constitution 
of  some  real  object.  It  must  be  endeavouring  to  think 
of  this  as  it  is  independently  of  the  psychological 
conditions  of  the  thinking  process  itself.  And  yet,  in  the 
very  attempt  to  do  so,  it  must  qualify  its  object  by 
features  which  are  merely  due  to  such  psychological 
conditions. 

I  cannot  pretend  to  give  anything  approaching  a  full 
analysis  of  the  various  special  circumstances  which  give 
rise  to  this  confusion  of  appearance  and  reality.  But 


i  ERROR  21 

the  following  indication  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  general 
principle  involved. 

Errors  may  be  roughly  classified  under  two  heads 
which  we  may  designate  (i)  as  errors  of  confusion, 
and  (2)  as  errors  of  ignorance,  inadvertence,  and  forget- 
fulness.  All  errors  involve  a  confusion  of  appearance 
and  reality.  But  this  confusion  is  the  error  itself,  not 
a  condition  determining  its  occurrence.  When  we  speak 
of  an  error  of  confusion,  we  mean  an  error  which  not 
only  is  a  confusion,  but  has  its  source  in  a  confusion. 
Again,  all  errors  involve  some  ignorance,  inadvertence, 
or  forgetfulness.  Whenever  any  one  makes  a  mistake, 
there  is  something  unknown  or  unheeded  which  would 
have  saved  him  from  error  if  he  had  known  and  taken 
account  of  it.  But  we  can  distinguish  between  cases  in 
which  ignorance  or  inadvertence  or  forgetfulness  are  the 
sole  or  the  main  source  of  the  erroneousness  of  a  belief, 
and  those  in  which  another  and  a  positive  condition  plays 
a  prominent  part.  This  other  positive  condition  is  what 
1  call  confusion.  I  shall  begin  by  explaining  wherein 
it  consists,  and  illustrate  it  by  typical  examples. 


(i)  ERRORS  OF  CONFUSION 

§  6.  There  is  a  confusion  wherever  our  cognitive  judg- 
ment is  determined  by  something  else  than  the  precise 
object  which  we  are  interested  in  knowing.  We  mean  to 
wrest  a  decision  from  just  this  object  concerning  which  the 
question  is  raised  ;  but  owing  to  psychological  conditions, 
other  factors  intervene  without  our  noticing  their  opera- 
tion and  determine,  or  contribute  to  determine,  our 
thought.  Optical  illusions  supply  many  examples.  I 
must  content  myself  with  one  very  simple  illustration 
of  this  kind. 


In   the   above   figure  there   arc   two   straight   lines,  a  b 
and    c  f;    the    part    c  d   is    marked    off    on    a  b,   and    the 


22  G.  F.  STOUT  i 

part  g  h  on  e  f.  c  d  is  really  equal  to  g  k.  But 
most  persons  on  a  cursory  glance  would  judge  it  to  be 
longer.  The  reason  is  that  though  we  mean  to  compare 
only  the  absolute  length  of  c  d  with  the  absolute  length 
of  g  h,  yet  without  our  knowing  it,  other  factors  help 
to  determine  the  result.  These  are  the  relative  length 
of  c  d  as  compared  with  a  b,  and  the  relative  length 
of  g  h  as  compared  with  e  f.  This  example  is  typical. 
In  all  such  instances  we  mean  our  judgment  to  depend 
on  comparison  of  two  magnitudes  as  presented  to  the 
eye.  But  these  magnitudes  are  presented  in  more  or 
less  intimate  union  with  other  items  so  as  to  form  with 
these  a  group  which  the  attention  naturally  apprehends 
as  a  whole.  Hence  there  is  a  difficulty  in  mentally 
isolating  the  magnitudes  themselves  from  the  contexts 
in  which  they  occur  so  as  to  compare  these  magnitudes 
only.  We  seek  to  be  determined  by  the  nature  of  the 
object  which  we  are  interested  in  knowing,  but  we  escape 
our  own  notice  in  being  determined  by  something  else. 
This  is  confusion. 

Another  most  prolific  source  of  confusion  is  found  in 
pre- formed  association.  All  associations  are  in  them- 
selves facts  of  the  individual  mind  and  not  attributes  of 
anything  else.  If  the  idea  of  smoke  always  calls  up  in 
my  mind  the  idea  of  fire  as  its  source,  this  is  something 
which  is  true  of  me,  and  not  of  the  fire  or  the  smoke  as 
independent  realities.  It  might  seem  from  this  that 
whenever  our  judgment  of  truth  and  falsehood  is  deter- 
mined by  association,  \ve  commit  a  confusion.  But  this 
is  not  so  ;  for  it  is  the  function  of  association  to  record 
the  results  of  past  experience  ;  and  when  the  results 
recorded  are  strictly  relevant  to  the  object  we  are 
interested  in  knowing,  and  to  the  special  question  at 
issue,  there  is  no  confusion. 

The  association  between  12x12  and  equality  to 
144  registers  the  result  of  previous  multiplication  of  12 
by  1 2.  There  is  therefore  no  confusion  in  allowing  it 
to  determine  our  cognitive  judgment.  But  the  associative 
mechanism  may  become  deranged  so  that  12x12  calls 


i  ERROR  23 

up  154  instead  of  144.  In  that  case  to  rely  on  it  as  a 
record  involves  an  error  of  confusion. 

It  often  happens  that  certain  connections  of  ideas 
are  insistently  and  persistently  obtruded  on  consciousness 
owing  to  associations  which  have  not  been  formed 
through  experiences  relevant  to  the  question  at  issue. 
So  long  and  so  far  as  their  irrelevance  is  unknown  or 
unheeded,  the  irrelevant  association  determines  the  course 
of  our  thought  in  the  same  way  as  the  relevant.  Take 
by  way  of  illustration  an  argument  recently  used  by  an 
earth-flattener.  The  earth  must  be  flat  ;  otherwise  the 
water  in  the  Suez  Canal  would  flow  out  at  both  ends. 
The  associations  operative  in  this  case,  are  those  due  to 
experience  of  spherical  bodies  situated  on  the  earth's 
surface.  Whenever  the  earth-flattener  thinks  of  the 
earth  as  a  globe,  inveterate  custom  drives  him  to  think 
of  it  as  he  has  been  used  to  think  of  all  the  other  globes, 
of  which  he  has  had  experience.  But  the  question  at 
issue  relates  to  the  earth  as  distinguished  from  bodies 
on  its  surface.  Hence  a  fallacy  of  confusion. 

One  effect  of  repeated  advertisements  such  as  those  of 
Beecham's  pills,  covering  several  columns  of  a  newspaper, 
is  to  produce  this  kind  of  illusion.  Self-praise  is  no 
recommendation.  But  self-praise  skilfully  and  obtrusively 
reiterated  may  suffice  to  produce  an  association  of  ideas 
which  influences  belief.1 

Errors  due  to  ambiguity  of  words  come  under  this 
head.  A  word  is  associated  with  diverse  though  allied 
meanings,  and,  as  we  go  on  using  it  in  what  aims  at  being 
continuous  thought,  one  meaning  insensibly  substitutes 
itself  for  another.  Being  unaware  of  the  shifting  of  our 
object  from  A  to  A'  we  go  on  assuming  that  what  we 
have  found  to  be  true  of  A  is  true  of  A'.  We  begin  for 
instance  by  talking  of  opponents  of  government,  meaning 


some  of  them  does  now  and  then  produce  in  me  a  moment; 
which   miijht  easily  become  an  actual   belief  if  1  were  not  or 
live  and   rhetorical   contrast  often  help  to  stamp  in  the.  as.sc 
for  pale  people"  is  a  <;ood  instance.       Of  course  tin:  \\lio 
cannot  be  explained  in  this  way. 


rsistrtit   reiteration   of 


my  f^uanl.  Allitera- 
-iation.  ' '  Pink  pills 
fleet  of  advertisement 


24  G.  F.  STOUT  i 

advocates  of  anarchy,  and  we  proceed  to  apply  what 
we  have  said  of  these  to  opponents  of  some  existing 
government. 

"  Bias  "  is  a  source  of  confusion  distinct  from  irrelevant 
association,  though  the  two  frequently  co-operate  to 
produce  error.  Bias  exists  so  far  as  there  is  a  tendency 
to  accept  one  answer  to  a  question  rather  than  another 
because  this  answer  obtrudes  itself  on  consciousness 
through  its  connection  with  the  emotions,  sentiments, 
desires,  etc.  of  the  subject  or  in  one  word,  because  it 
is  specially  interesting.  The  interest  is  most  frequently 
agreeable.  But  it  may  also  be  disagreeable.  In  return- 
ing home  after  the  discovery  of  the  famous  footprint, 
Robinson  Crusoe's  terror  caused  him  to  mistake  every 
bush  and  tree,  and  to  fancy  every  stump  at  a  distance 
to  be  a  man.  To  say  that  a  man's  mind  is  intensely 
occupied  in  escaping  or  guarding  against  danger,  is 
equivalent  to  saying  that  he  is  intensely  interested  in 
finding  out  what  the  danger  is  and  where  it  lies.  Hence 
he  will  be  on  the  alert  for  signs  and  indications  of  peril. 
He  will  therefore  attend  to  features  of  his  environment 
which  would  otherwise  have  passed  unnoted,  and  he 
will  neglect  others  which  he  would  otherwise  have 
attended  to.  Thus  fear  may  influence  belief  by  determin- 
ing what  data  are,  or  are  not,  taken  into  account.  By 
excluding  relevant  data  it  may  give  rise  to  error  of 
inadvertence.  But  besides  this  the  data  which  fear 
selects  are  also  emphasised  by  it.  They  obtrude  them- 
selves with  an  insistent  vivacity  proportioned  to  the 
intensity  of  the  emotion.  This  insistent  vivacity  directly 
contributes  to  determine  belief  and  becomes  a  source  of 
error  of  confusion.  In  view  of  current  statements  this 
last  point  needs  to  be  argued. 

The  prevailing  view  appears  to  be  that  errors  due  to 
bias  are  merely  errors  of  inadvertence.  Dr.  Ward,  for 
example,  strongly  takes  up  this  position.  "  Emotion  and 
desire,"  he  remarks,  "  are  frequent  indirect  causes  of 
subjective  certainty,  in  so  far  as  they  determine  the 
constituents  of  consciousness  at  the  moment — pack  the 


i  ERROR  25 

jury  or  suborn  the  witnesses  as  it  were.  But  the  ground 
of  certainty  is  in  all  cases  some  quality  or  some  relation 
of  these  presentations  inter  sc.  In  a  sense,  therefore,  the 
ground  of  all  certainty  is  objective  —  in  the  sense,  that 
is,  of  being  something  at  least  directly  and  immediately 
determined  for  the  subject  and  not  by  him."  * 

What  Ward's  argument  really  proves  is  that  subjective 
bias  cannot  be  recognised  by  the  subject  himself  as  a 
ground  or  reason  for  believing.  It  does  not  follow  that 
it  may  not  directly  influence  belief  through  confusion. 
In  cases  of  confusion  we  seek  control  proceeding  from  the 
nature  of  our  object,  and  we  find  our  thought  determined 
by  something  else  which  we  fail  to  distinguish  from  the 
objective  control  we  are  in  search  of.  Now  there  seems 
to  be  no  reason  why  subjective  interest  should  not,  in  this 
way,  mask  itself  as  objective  control.  Connection  with 
emotion  and  desire  may  give  to  certain  ideas  a  persistent 
obtrusiveness  which  is  not  always  adequately  traced  to  its 
source.  But  this  persistent  obtrusiveness,  when  and  so  far 
as  it  is  not  traced  to  its  source  in  emotion  and  desire,  must 
appear  as  if  it  arose  from  the  nature  of  the  object.  It 
will  thus  appear  to  the  subject  as  something  which 
determines  him  and  is  not  determined  by  him.  This 
confusion  may  assume  three  forms.  In  the  first  place 
there  are  instances  in  which  it  is  very  difficult  to  dis- 
cover any  other  cause  of  belief  except  subjective  bias. 
The  person  who  holds  the  belief  cannot  assign  any  reason 
for  it  except  that  he  feels  it  to  be  true.  Sometimes,  no 
doubt,  there  may  be  in  such  cases  an  objective  ground 
which  the  believer  finds  it  impossible  to  express  or 
indicate  to  others.  But  there  are  instances  in  which  the 
sole  or  the  main  factor  seems  to  be  subjective  bias. 
What  is  believed  obtrudes  itself  upon  consciousness  vividly 
and  persistently  because  of  its  peculiar  kind  and  degree 
of  interest  so  that  it  is  difficult  to  frame  the  idea  of 
alternative  possibilities  save  in  a  comparatively  faint, 
imperfect,  and  intermittent  way. 

The  second  class  of  cases  is  less  problematical.      I  refer 

1   Article  on  "Psychology,"  in  l-.ncv.  Hr:t.   p.  83. 


26  G.  F.  STOUT  i 

to  instances  in  which  there  are  relevant  reasons  for  belief 
but  reasons  which  are  inadequate  to  account  for  the  actual 
degree  of  assurance,  apart  from  the  co-operation  of  bias. 
A  regards  B  with  hatred  and  jealousy  so  that  the  mere 
imagination  of  B's  disgrace  or  ruin  has  a  fascination  for 
him.  Something  occurs  which  would  produce  in  an 
impartial  person  a  suspicion  that  B  had  been  behaving  in 
a  disgraceful  way.  A  at  once  believes  the  worst  with 
unwavering  decision  and  tenacity.  It  may  be  that  the 
impartial  person,  who  only  entertains  a  suspicion,  has  just 
as  restricted  a  view  of  the  evidence  as  A.  The  restriction 
may  be  due  to  ignorance  or  indifference  in  his  case,  and 
mental  preoccupation  in  A's.  But  for  both  the  relevant 
evidence  may  be  virtually  the  same.  The  difference  is 
that  in  A's  mind  it  is  reinforced  and  sustained  by 
subjective  bias  which  he  does  not  sufficiently  allow  for. 
In  a  third  class  of  instances  irrelevant  association  co- 
operates with  subjective  bias.  This  is  perhaps  the  most 
fertile  source  of  superstitions  and  of  those  savage  beliefs 
of  which  superstitions  are  survivals.  Take  for  example 
the  tendency  which  some  uneducated  persons  and  even 
some  who  are  educated  find  irresistible,  to  think  of  their 
bodies  as  still  sentient  after  death.  Sit  tibi  terra  levis 
is  more  than  a  metaphor.  It  points  back  to  the  belief 
that  the  weight  of  the  superincumbent  earth  actually 
distresses  the  corpse.  It  is  a  Mahometan  superstition 
that  the  believing  dead  suffer  when  the  unhallowed  foot  of 
a  Christian  treads  on  their  graves.  In  the  old  Norse 
legends  to  lay  hands  on  the  treasure  hidden  in  the  tomb 
of  a  chief  is  to  run  a  serious  risk  of  rousing  its  owner  from 
his  long  sleep  to  defend  his  possessions.  Perhaps  there 
are  few  people  who  look  forward  to  their  own  funeral 
without  figuring  themselves  to  be  present  at  it  not  only 
in  body  but  in  mind.  This  whole  point  of  view  is  in  part 
due  to  a  firmly  established  association  arising  from  the 
intimate  connection  of  mind  and  body  during  life.  But 
besides  this  we  must  also  take  into  account  the  gruesome 
fascination  of  such  ideas.  Their  vivid  and  absorbing 
interest  makes  it  difficult  to  get  rid  of  them,  and  this 


i  ERROR  27 

persistent  obtrusiveness  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  traced  to  its 
source  in  psychological  conditions  contributes  to 
determine  belief  in  their  reality. 

(2)  ERRORS  OF  IGNORANCE  AND  INADVERTENCE 

We  turn  now  from  the  error  of  confusion  to  the  error 
of  mere  ignorance,  which  must  be  taken  to  include  all 
forgetfulness  or  inadvertence.  As  I  have  before  pointed 
out,  all  error  involves  some  ignorance  or  inadvertence  ; 
but  in  the  case  of  confusion  there  is  also  some  other 
positive  ground  of  the  erroneousness  of  the  belief.  An 
irrelevant  condition  operates  as  if  it  were  relevant.  It 
would  not  do  so,  if  we  were  fully  and  persistently  aware  of 
its  presence  and  influence,  and  to  this  extent  the  error  of 
confusion  is  one  of  ignorance  or  inadvertence  ;  but  the 
ignorance  and  inadvertence  is  not  the  sole  cause  of  error. 
There  is  also  the  undetected  influence  of  the  irrelevant 
factor  determining  the  course  of  thought.  In  the  error 
of  mere  ignorance  or  inadvertence,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
sole  ground  of  the  erroneousness  of  the  belief  lies  in  the 
insufficiency  of  the  data,  at  the  time  when  it  is  formed. 
But  here  we  must  guard  against  a  misapprehension.  The 
error  is  not  identical  with  the  ignorance  or  inadvertence. 
It*  is  a  belief  having  a  positive  content  of  its  own.  Nor 
is  it  correct  to  say  even  that  the  determining  cause  of 
this  belief  lies  in  the  ignorance  or  inadvertence.  Mere 
negation  or  privation  cannot  be  the  sole  ground  of  any 
positive  result.  What  directly  determines  belief  is  the 
data  which  are  presented,  not  anything  which  is  un- 
prescnted,  and  we  must  add  to  these  as  another 
positive  condition  the  urgency  of  the  interest  which 
demands  a  decision  and  will  not  permit  of  a  suspense  of 
judgment.  It  is  these  factors  which  arc  operative  in 
producing  the  belief.  Ignorance  and  inadvertence 
account  only  for  its  erroneousness.  In  all  cognitive 
process  we  seek  to  be  determined  by  the  nature  of  our 
object.  But  if  the  object  is  only  partially  known,  what  is 
unknown  may  be  relevant  so  that  if  it  had  been  known 


28  G.   F.  STOUT  i 

and   heeded   another  decision  would  have  been  imposed 
on  us. 

As  an  example  of  error  due  to  mere  ignorance,  I  may 
refer  to  a  personal  experience  of  my  own.  Some  time 
ago  I  set  out  to  visit  a  friend  who,  as  I  assumed,  was 
living  in  Furnival's  Inn.  I  found  on  arrival  that  the 
whole  building  had  been  pulled  down.  My  error  in  this 
case  was  not  due  to  any  confusion.  The  evidence  on 
which  I  was  relying  was  all  relevant  and  such  as  I  still 
continue  to  trust  on  similar  occasions.  I  went  wrong 
simply  because  certain  events  had  been  occurring  since 
my  previous  visit  to  Furnival's  Inn  without  my  knowing 
of  them. 

Inadvertence  is  not  sharply  divided  from  mere 
ignorance.  It  includes  all  failure  to  bring  to  conscious- 
ness knowledge,  already  acquired  and  capable  of  recall,  at 
the  time  when  it  is  required  for  determining  our  decision. 
It  may  also  be  taken  to  include  other  failures  to  take  into 
account  knowledge  which  would  have  been  immediately 
and  easily  accessible  if  we  had  turned  our  attention  in  the 
right  direction.  Mill  gives  many  examples  under  the 
head  "  Fallacies  of  Non-observation."  From  him  I  quote 
the  following  : — "  John  Wesley,  while  he  commemorates 
the  triumph  of  sulphur  and  supplication  over  his  bodily 
infirmities,  forgets  to  appreciate  the  resuscitating  influence 
of  four  months'  repose  from  his  apostolic  labours." 
Wesley  knew  that  he  had  taken  rest  and  also  that  rest 
has  commonly  a  recuperative  effect  in  such  cases.  His 
failure  lay  in  omitting  to  take  these  facts  into  account 
owing  to  subjective  bias,  as  an  amateur  physician  with 
crochets  and  as  a  religious  enthusiast. 

So  far  as  error  is  traceable  to  ignorance  or  inadvertence, 
it  is  perhaps  abstractedly  possible  to  conceive  that  it 
might  have  been  avoided  by  an  absolute  suspense  of 
judgment.  I  might  have  refused  to  count  on  the  con- 
tinued existence  of  Furnival's  Inn,  or  even  on  the  chance 
of  it,  on  the  ground  that  I  did  not  know  all  that  had 
happened  in  relation  to  it,  since  I  saw  it  last.  But  such 
suspense  of  judgment  cannot  be  uncompromisingly  main- 


i  ERROR  29 

tained  as  a  general  attitude  throughout  our  whole  mental 
life.  It  would  be  equivalent  to  a  refusal  to  live  at  all. 
Any  one  who  carried  out  the  principle  consistently  would 
not  say  "  this  is  a  chair  "  when  he  saw  one.  He  would 
rather  say,  "This  is  what,  if  my  memory  serves  me  right,' 
I  am  accustomed  to  regard  as  the  visual  appearance  of  a 
chair."  In  thus  cutting  off  the  chance  of  error  we  should 
at  the  same  time  cut  off  the  chance  of  truth.  In  order 
to  advance  either  in  theory  or  practice,  we  must  presume — 
bet  on  our  partial  knowledge.  We  must  take  the  risk 
due  to  an  unexplored  remainder  of  conditions  which  may 
be  relevant  to  the  issue  we  have  to  decide  on.  But  there 
is  another  alternative.  A  mental  attitude  is  possible 
intermediate  between  absolute  suspense  of  judgment  and 
undoubting  acceptance  of  a  proposition  as  true.  We 
may  judge  that  the  balance  of  evidence  is  in  favour  of 
the  proposition.  Instead  of  unreservedly  expecting  to 
find  Furnival's  Inn,  I  might  have  said  to  myself  that  it 
was  a  hundred  to  one  I  should  find  it.  So  far  as  this 
proposition  has  a  practical  significance  as  a  guide  to 
action  it  can  only  mean  that  I  should  be  right  in  relying 
on  similar  evidence  in  99  cases  out  of  100.  But  such  an 
attitude  does  not  really  evade  the  possibility  of  error 
arising  from  ignorance  and  inadvertence.  For  (i)  we  are 
liable  to  go  wrong  even  in  the  estimate  of  probabilities. 
There  are,  for  example,  vulgar  errors  of  this  kind  which 
mathematical  theory  corrects.  (2)  In  determining  the 
probability  of  this  or  that  proposition,  we  proceed  on  the 
basis  of  a  preformed  body  of  beliefs  which  arc  themselves 
liable  to  be  erroneous.  In  particular,  we  are  apt  to 
assume  uncloubtingly  that  our  view  of  competing  alterna- 
tive is  virtually  exhaustive,  when  it  is  really  not  so.  But 
we  cannot  be  always  sifting  these  latent  presuppositions  to 
the  bottom.  If  we  constantly  endeavoured  to  do  so  in  a 
thorough-going  way,  it  would  be  impossible  to  meet  the 
emergencies  of  practical  life  or  even  to  make  effective 
progress  in  knowledge.  It  is  a  psychological  impossibility 
to  assume  and  maintain  a  dubitative  attitude  at  every 
point  where  ignorance  or  inadvertence  are  capable  of 


30  G.  F.  STOUT  i 

leading  us  astray.  We  have  not  time  for  this,  and  in 
any  case  the  complexity  and  difficulty  of  the  task 
would  baffle  our  most  strenuous  efforts.  (3)  Continued 
attention  to  the  possibility  of  a  judgment  being 
wrong  would  for  the  most  part  hamper  us  in  the 
use  of  it.  In  believing,  we  commit  ourselves  to  act  on 
our  belief,  to  adapt  our  conduct  and  our  thought 
to  what  is  believed  as  being  real.  In  so  doing  we  must 
more  and  more  tend  to  drop  demurrers  and  reservations. 
I  cannot  every  time  I  return  to  my  house  after  absence 
keep  steadily  before  my  mind  that  it  may  have  been 
burnt  down  without  my  knowing  it.  When  we  have 
committed  ourselves  to  a  belief  so  as  to  conform  our 
thought  and  conduct  to  it,  it  becomes  more  and  more 
interwoven  with  the  whole  system  of  our  mental  life. 
Our  interest  in  its  consequences  and  implications  diverts 
attention  from  considerations  which  point  to  its  possible 
or  probable  erroneousness  and  at  the  same  time  this  same 
interest  forms  a  subjective  bias  of  growing  strength  which 
is  likely  to  lead  to  an  error  of  confusion. 

Absolute  suspense  of  judgment,  as  we  have  defined  it, 
would  exclude  even  a  judgment  of  relative  probability. 
There  is,  however,  a  different  meaning  which  attaches  in 
ordinary  language  to  the  phrase  "  absolute  "  or  "  complete  " 
suspense  of  judgment.  It  is  frequently  taken  to  mean 
that  the  balance  of  probability  for  and  against  a  proposi- 
tion is  regarded  as  even.  This  kind  of  suspense  does  not 
prevent  us  from  acting  as  if  the  proposition  were  true  or 
false.  But  neither  does  it  exclude  error.  For  the 
judgment  that  probabilities  are  equally  balanced  is  itself 
liable  to  error,  like  other  judgments  of  probability. 
Besides  this,  such  a  judgment  is  not  by  itself  sufficient  to 
determine  action.  It  must  be  supplemented  by  other 
beliefs  of  a  more  positive  kind,  and  in  regard  to  these  the 
possibility  of  error  again  emerges.  A  man  may  regard  it 
as  an  even  chance  whether  a  certain  operation  \\ill  kill  or 
cure  him.  lie  may,  none  the  less,  decide  to  undergo  it, 
so  that  his  practical  decision  is  the  same  as  if  he  had  no 
doubt  of  a  favourable  result.  But  the  practical  decision 


i  ERROR  31 

is  founded  on  another  belief,  the  belief  that  the  advantage 
of  a  favourable  issue  is  greater  than  the  disadvantage  of 
an  unfavourable  issue.  Again  a  general  may  think  the 
chances  even,  of  the  enemy  coming  this  way  or  that  to 
attack  him.  Merely  on  this  basis  he  could  not  in- 
telligently make  provision  for  one  contingency  in 
preference  to  the  other.  In  order  that  he  may  do  so,  he 
must  be  influenced  by  other  beliefs  of  a  more  determinate 
kind.  He  may,  for  instance,  believe  that  if  the  enemy 
comes  one  way,  it  is  useless  to  attempt  resistance,  and 
that  if  he  comes  the  other,  the  attack  can  be  repelled. 
On  these  assumptions  he  will  proceed  as  if  he  un- 
doubtingly  accepted  the  second  alternative.  Our  result, 
then  is — (i)  That  absolute  suspense  of  judgment  excluding 
even  the  judgment  of  probability  is  equivalent  to  suspense 
of  action.  (2)  That  the  relative  suspense  of  judgment 
which  consists  in  affirming  even  chances,  does  not  suffice 
to  determine  action  unless  it  is  supplemented  by  other 
beliefs  in  which  one  alternative  is  preferred  to  others. 
Hence  it  appears  that  practical  decision  involves  theoretical 
decision,  and  that  we  must  constantly  risk  error  by 
presuming  on  partial  knowledge  if  we  are  to  live  at  all. 

Here  we  must  close  this  sketch  of  the  special  conditions 
of  error.  The  topic  in  itself  is  almost  inexhaustible.  But 
what  has  been  said  may  serve  to  illustrate  our  general 
position. 

This  position  is  simply  that  error  is  a  special  case  of 
mere  appearance.  It  is  mere  appearance  which  also 
appears  to  be  real.  The  essence  of  all  mere  appearance 
is  that  it  is  a  feature  of  an  object  which  belongs  to  it 
only  in  virtue  of  the  psychical  conditions  under  which  it  is 
apprehended.  In  the  case  of  error  the  psychical  con- 
ditions so  operate  that  mere  appearance  is  not  recognised 
as  such,  but  is  on  the  contrary  presented  as  if  it  were  real. 

VI.  No  ERROR  is  PTRI:  ERROR 

^  /.  The  rest  of  this  essay  will  be  occupied  with  some 
corollaries  which  flow  from  our  general  position. 


32  G.   F.  STOUT  i 

One  of  these  is  that  no  error  is  pure  error.  However 
much  we  may  be  deceived,  the  total  object  of  our  thinking 
or  perceiving  consciousness  cannot  be  entirely  illusory. 

This  does  not  mean  that  error  is  only  truth  in  the 
making,  or  that  truth  can  always  be  obtained  by  some 
adjustment,  compromise,  combination,  or  higher  synthesis 
of  diverging  views.  When  I  say  that  error  is  never  pure 
error  I  am  not  adopting  the  attitude  of  the  landlord  of 
'  The  Rainbow  '  in  Silas  Marner.  "  Come,  come,"  said  the 
landlord,  "  a  joke's  a  joke.  We  must  give  and  take. 
You're  both  right  and  you're  both  wrong  as  I  say.  I 
agree  with  Mr.  Macey  here,  as  there's  two  opinions  ; 
and  if  mine  was  asked  I  should  say  they're  both  right. 
Tookey's  right  and  Winthrop's  right,  and  they've  only  got 
to  split  the  difference  and  make  themselves  even."  It  is 
no  such  comfortable  philosophy  that  I  am  advocating. 
On  the  contrary,  I  admit  and  maintain  that  in  the 
ordinary  acceptation  of  the  word  a  man  may  be  and 
frequently  is  "  completely  wrong,"  and  also  that  he  may 
be  and  sometimes,  though  not  so  frequently,  is  completely 
right.  But  I  would  point  out  that  such  phrases  are  used 
in  ordinary  parlance  with  a  certain  tacit  and  unconscious 
reservation.  "  Completely  wrong "  means  completely 
wrong  so  far  as  relates  to  the  point  at  issue — to  the 
question  which  alone  possesses  interest  for  the  parties 
concerned.  If  a  man  meets  me  some  morning  and  tells 
me,  in  good  faith,  that  Balliol  College  has  been  burned 
down  during  the  night,  I  say,  with  justice,  that  he  has  been 
completely  deceived,  when  it  turns  out  that  there  has  been 
no  fire,  and  that  Balliol  College  is  just  as  it  was.  If  my 
informant  were  to  defend  himself  from  the  charge  of 
complete  error  by  alleging  that  after  all  Balliol  College 
really  exists,  and  that  fires  really  take  place,  I  should  call 
his  answer  irrelevant  and  stupid.  Yet  the  answer  would 
be  true  enough,  and  it  would  only  be  stupid  because  of  its 
irrelevance.  It  would  be  irrelevant  because  the  existence 
of  Balliol  and  the  occurence  of  fires  were  facts  taken  for 
granted  as  a  matter  of  course.  There  was  never  any 
question  concerning  them.  When  I  said  that  he  was 


i  ERROR  33 

entirely  deceived,  I  meant  that  he  was  so  deceived  on  the 
only  point  of  interest  which  could  lead  him  to  make  the 
statement  at  all,  or  me  to  listen  to  it. 

Thus  in  ordinary  intercourse  we  may  be  completely 
right  in  saying  that  a  man  is  completely  wrong.  But 
this  is  possible  only  because  the  statement  is  made  with  a 
tacit  and  unconscious  reservation.  It  is  made  with 
reference  not  to  the  total  object  present  to  the  mind  of 
the  person  who  is  deceived,  but  with  reference  to  that 
part  of  it  which  alone  interests  us  at  the  moment. 
But  when  we  are  concerned  with  the  philosophical  theory 
of  error,  what  is  uninteresting  in  ordinary  intercourse 
becomes  of  primary  importance.  We  must  consider  the 
total  object,  and  when  we  do  so,  we  are  compelled  to 
recognise  that  some  truth  is  implied  in  every  error.  For 
otherwise  the  word  "  error  "  loses  all  meaning. 

The  unreality  of  what  is  unreal  lies  wholly  in  its 
contrast  with  what  is  real.  It  must  be  thought  of  as 
qualifying  some  real  being.  Its  unreality  is  relative  not 
to  any  real  being  whatever  taken  at  random,  but  only  to 
that  real  being  to  which  it  is  referred  as  a  character  or 
attribute. 

It  is  essential  to  the  possibility  of  error  that  both  the 
real  being  and  its  unreal  qualification  must  be  present  to 
consciousness.  I  may  imagine  an  animal  and  describe  it 
as  imagined.  Another  person  who  is  acquainted  with 
some  actual  animal  more  or  less  resembling  what  I  have 
imagined  may  regard  my  description  as  referring  to  this. 
From  his  point  of  view  he  may  show  that  parts  of  my 
description  are  unreal.  But  he  does  not  convict  me  of 
error  unless  he  can  show  that  I  intended  to  describe  the 
animal  which  he  has  in  mind. 

It  docs  not  follow  that  the  explicit  subject  of  an 
erroneous  judgment  must  itself  be  real  and  not  illusory. 
It  may  be  illusory  in  relation  to  a  more  comprehensive 
subject,  which  is  real.  If  I  am  told  that  Cleopolis,  the 
capital  of  fairy-land,  was  burnt  down  last  night,  I  reply 
that  Cleopolis  and  fairy  -  land  never  had  any  actual 
existence.  Here  I  condemn  both  subject  and  predicate 


34  G.   F.  STOUT  i 

as  illusory.  But  in  doing  so  I  regard  the  subject  as  itself 
a  predicate  of  a  more  comprehensive  subject  which  really 
exists.  I  presuppose  a  certain  kind  of  reality  which  I 
call  actual  existence.  This  consists  in  a  system  of  things 
and  events  continuously  connected  in  an  assignable  way 
with  my  own  existence  at  the  present  moment,  and 
including  what  happened  last  night.  When  I  say  that 
Cleopolis  never  actually  existed,  I  deny  that  it  ever 
formed  a  partial  feature  of  this  reality. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  subject  of  an  erroneous 
judgment  applies  also  to  the  predicate.  The  predicate 
cannot  be  entirely  unreal.  This  follows  from  the  fact  that 
the  distinction  between  subject  and  predicate  is  relative  to 
the  point  of  view  of  the  person  judging,  and  fluctuates 
accordingly.  Whether  I  say  "  this  horse  is  black "  or 
"  this  black  thing  is  a  horse "  depends  on  the  point  of 
departure  of  my  thought  and  not  on  the  nature  of  its 
object.  If  I  begin  by  regarding  the  object  as  a  horse 
and  then  proceed  to  qualify  it  as  black,  "  black "  is 
predicate  and  horse  subject.  If  I  begin  thinking  of  the 
object  as  a  black  thing  and  then  proceed  to  qualify  it  as 
being  a  horse,  horse  is  predicate  and  "  black  thing "  is 
subject. 

Considerations  of  this  kind  have  led  some  writers  to 
regard  error  as  ultimately  consisting  merely  in  a  mis- 
placement of  predicates.  Subject  is  real  and  predicate  is 
real  ;  we  err  only  in  putting  them  together  in  the  wrong 
way.  This  manner  of  speaking  seems  to  me  misleading  so 
far  as  it  suggests  that  the  illusory  object,  as  such,  having 
no  positive  content  of  its  own,  can  be  resolved  without 
remainder  into  constituents  which  are  not  illusory  but  real. 
The  fallacy  lies  in  the  tacit  assumption  that  A  as  predicate 
of  B  is  just  the  same  A  as  when  it  is  predicated  of  C,  I), 
E,  etc.  This  is  not  so.  In  predicating  A  of  B  we 
think  of  A  as  related  in  a  specific  way  to  the  other 
constituents  and  attributes  of  A.  But  this  relatedncss  of 
B  is  as  much  part  of  the  positive  content  of  our  thought 
as  whatever  may  be  left  of  B  when  we  abstract  from  this 
relatedncss.  Besides  this,  B  when  it  is  thought  of  as 


i  ERROR  35 

existing  in  these  relations  is  thought  of  as  adjusted  to 
them  and  modified  accordingly.  In  Goldsmith's  poem  of 
the  mad  dog,  the  people  make  a  mistake  in  saying  that 
the  man  would  die. 

The  man  recovered  of  the  bite ; 
The  dog  it  was  that  died. 

Here  it  is  assumed  that  the  man  is  real,  the  dog  is  real 
and  the  death  is  real.  It  would  seem  therefore  that  the 
error  lay  merely  in  a  wrong  arrangement — in  coupling 
death  with  the  man  instead  of  with  the  dog.  But  in  fact 
the  death  of  a  man  is  something  different  in  its  nature 
and  implications  from  the  death  of  a  dog,  and  a  man 
dying  is  something  different  from  a  dog  dying.  Perhaps 
if  the  man  had  died,  the  world  would  have  lost  a  church- 
warden. But  this  could  not  be  part  of  the  meaning  of 
the  death  of  the  dog. 

VII.  LIMITS  TO  THE  POSSIBILITY  OF  ERROR 

§  8.  If  the  essential  conditions  of  error  are  absent,  what 
is  taken  for  real  must  be  real.  From  this  point  of  view 
we  can  prescribe  limits  to  the  possibility  of  error.  A 
belief  cannot  be  erroneous  unless  it  ascribes  to  a  real 
existence,  as  such,  some  qualification  which  does  not 
belong  to  it.  The  real  existence  must  itself  be  present 
to  consciousness,  and  the  subject  must  mean  it  to  be 
qualified  by  the  features  which  are  said  to  be  illusory. 
Thus,  when  an  illusion  is  spoken  of,  we  have  a  right  to 
inquire  what  the  reality  is  in  relation  to  which  it  is  an 
illusion.  We  have  a  right  to  insist  that  this  reality 
must  be  thought  of  by  the  subject  who  is  deceived.  We 
have  also  a  right  to  insist  that  it  must  be  capable  of 
being  conceived  without  the  feature  or  features  which 
are  said  to  be  illusory.  Otherwise  there  would  be  a 
circle. 

Now  there  are  cases  in  which  no  such  reality  is 
assignable,  and  it  is  consequently  meaningless  to  speak 
of  error.  I  believe  in  the  totality  of  being,  and  it  is 


36  G.  F.  STOUT  i 

nonsense  to  say  that  I  may  be  deceived.  For  there  is 
no  more  comprehensive  reality  of  which  the  totality  of 
being  can  be  conceived  as  a  partial  feature  or  aspect. 
Whatever  point  there  may  be  in  the  ontological  argument 
for  the  existence  of  God  lies  in  this.  Again,  I  believe 
that  my  consciousness  exists,  and  my  belief  cannot  be 
illusory.  For  it  cannot  be  illusory  unless  I  regard  my 
consciousness  as  a  qualification  of  some  reality  which  is 
not  so  qualified.  Now  whatever  this  reality  is  supposed 
to  be,  it  must  be  a  reality  which  is  present  to  my  con- 
sciousness when  I  commit  the  error.  In  other  words, 
we  cannot  think  of  any  reality  to  contrast  with  illusion 
which  does  not  include  the  very  feature  that  is  alleged 
to  be  illusory. 

A  more  interesting  illustration  is  supplied  by  the 
objects  of  abstract  thought. 

The  object  signified  by  an  abstract  term  is  not 
regarded  as  an  adjective  of  anything  else.  In  sub- 
stituting for  an  adjective  the  corresponding  abstract 
noun  we  leave  out  of  count  adjectival  reference  and 
treat  the  object  of  our  thought  only  as  a  substantive. 
This  does  not  mean  that  we  cease  to  regard  it  as  an 
attribute  ;  for  all  abstract  objects  are  essentially  attributes 
and  must  be  recognised  as  such.  "  Adjectival  reference  " 
does  not  merely  consist  in  being  aware  that  an  attribute 
is  an  attribute.  The  distinctive  function  of  adjectives  is 
the  attribution  of  an  attribute  to  a  thing.  Their  specific 
office  is  to  express  the  connection  of  a  certain  attribute 
with  whatever  other  attributes  the  thing  may  possess. 
Unless  the  thing  is  expressly  considered  as  possessing 
other  attributes,  the  adjectival  reference  loses  all  signifi- 
cance. On  the  contrary,  an  attribute  abstractly  con- 
sidered is  considered  by  itself:  the  fact  that  the  things 
which  it  qualifies  possess  other  attributes  is  regarded  as 
irrelevant  to  the  purpose  of  our  thought.  Things  are 
referred  to  only  in  so  far  as  they  may  possess  the  attribute 
in  which  we  are  interested,  to  the  neglect  of  their  other 
features. 

The   addition   of  such   phrases   as   qua,  or   "  as   such," 


i  ERROR  37 

to  an  adjective  always  annuls  the  adjectival  reference  and 
substitutes  for  it  the  abstract  point  of  view.  When  I  say 
"  white  things,"  I  include  in  the  intent  of  my  thought 
whatever  other  attributes  may  belong  to  the  things  besides 
whiteness.  Hence  in  passing  from  intent  to  content,  I 
can  affirm  that  "  white  things  are  tangible."  When  I  say 
"  white  things  as  such,  or  qua  white,"  I  exclude  from  the 
intent  of  my  thought  the  other  attributes  of  white  things, 
though  I  do  not  of  course  deny  their  existence.  Hence 
I  cannot  say  that  "  white  things  as  such,  or  qua  white,  are 
tangible."  In  like  manner,  we  cannot  say  that  "  whiteness 
is  tangible."  For,  "  whiteness "  is  equivalent  to  white 
things  as  suc/i,  or  qua  white. 

If  this  account  of  the  abstract  object  is  correct,  such  an 
object  cannot  be  illusory  unless  it  is  internally  incoherent. 
For  illusion  exists  only  if  a  qualification  is  ascribed  to 
something  to  which  it  does  not  belong.  But  an  attribute 
abstractly  considered  is  regarded  merely  as  an  attribute 
of  whatever  may  happen  to  possess  it.  Whiteness  is 
regarded  only  as  an  attribute  of  whatever  things  are 
white.  But  white  things  must  be  white.  There  is  only 
one  conceivable  way  in  which  the  abstract  object  can  be 
unreal.  It  may  be  unreal  because  by  its  own  intrinsic 
nature  it  is  incapable  of  existing.  But  this  can  be  the 
case  only  when  it  is  internally  incoherent.  When  it  is 
internally  incoherent,  it  is  illusory,  because  it  contains 
illusion  within  itself,  apart  from  reference  to  anything 
else.1 

The  concept  of  a  solid  figure  bounded  by  twelve  squares 
is  unreal  in  this  manner.  For  the  nature  of  solid  figures, 
abstractedly  considered,  is  such  as  to  exclude  the  qualifica- 
tion attributed  to  it.  Similarly  any  abstract  object  is 
illusory  if  one  of  its  constituents  is  thought  to  be  a 
possible  or  necessary  qualification  of  another  which  it 

1  Just  as  adjectival  reference  may  be  annulled  by  the  phrases  "as  such,"  or 
qua,  so  abstraction  may  be  annulled  by  making  the  abstract  object  a  subject 
of  a  judgment  in  which  it  is  affirmed  to  be  an  attribute  of  something.  For  its 
connection  with  other  attributes  of  the  thing  essentially  belong-,  to  the  import 
of  such  a  judgment.  The  judgment  is  possible  because  the  fact  of  the  abstract 
object  being  an  attribute  is  one  of  its  own  essential  adjectives.  \Yhon  we  say 
that  it  is  an  "attribute  of,"  we  merely  give  this  adjective  a  sped  tie  determin.'.tion. 


38  G.   F.  STOUT  i 

does  not  so  qualify.  I  speak  only  of  possible  or  necessary, 
not  of  actual  connection,  because  the  question  of  actuality 
involves  an  adjectival  reference  beyond  the  content  of  the 
abstract  object  itself.  When  we  say  that  a  solid  figure  is 
not  actually  bounded  by  twelve  squares,  we  mean  that 
nothing  actually  exists,  combining  the  attributes  of  a  solid 
figure  and  of  being  bounded  by  twelve  squares.  But 
this  in  itself  would  not  make  the  abstract  object  illusory  : 
for  in  its  abstractedness  it  is  not  intended  as  the  adjective 
of  anything  else. 

Assuming  internal  coherence  it  seems  clear  that  the 
abstract  object  cannot  be  illusory.  But  is  it  real  ?  and  if 
so  in  what  sense  ?  I  answer  that  it  is  real  if  it  is  possible  to 
make  a  mistake  or  even  to  conceive  a  mistake  concerning 
it.  It  is  real,  if  it  is  an  object  with  which  our  thought 
may  agree  or  disagree.  This  seems  to  me  the  only 
relevant  use  of  the  term  reality  in  theory  of  Knowledge, 
and  more  especially  in  theory  of  Error. 

It  may  be  urged  that  the  truth  or  error  which  has  an 
abstraction  for  its  object  is  only  hypothetical  or  conditional, 
resting  in  an  assumption.  Now,  it  is  becoming  a  custom 
with  some  writers  to  use  such  words  as  "  hypothetical  "  or 
"conditional"  with  perplexing  vagueness.  In  the  present 
case  the  meaning  seems  very  obscure.  Certainly  truth 
and  falsehood  relating  to  an  abstraction  presuppose  that 
it  is  just  this  abstract  object  which  we  intend  and  nothing 
else.  But  how  can  this  make  the  truth  or  error  itself 
hypothetical  or  conditional  ?  I  affirm  that  the  sky  is  blue 
and  some  one  tells  me  that  my  statement  is  hypothetical 
because  it  can  only  be  true  or  false  on  the  condition  that 
I  really  mean  the  sky  and  not,  let  us  say,  a  piece  of  coal, 
or  the  Christian  religion.  This  is  so  plainly  nonsense 
that  it  seems  futile  to  waste  words  over  it.1 

But  is  not  abstract  thought  unreal,  because  it  takes 
something  to  be  self-subsistent  which  is  not  so  ?  I 
answer  that  abstract  thought  does  nothing  of  the  kind. 
It  neither  affirms  nor  denies  the  adjectival  relations  of  the 
abstract  object,  but  simply  attempts  to  ignore  them  and 

1    This  point  is  further  considered  below,      Cf.  p.  45. 


i  ERROR  39 

to  deal  with  whatever  is  then  left  to  think  about.  In 
some  cases,  there  may,  perhaps,  be  nothing  left  and  the 
experiment  fails  altogether.  In  others,  there  may  be  very 
little  left  and  the  experiment,  though  successful,  is  un- 
fruitful. In  yet  others,  the  result  may  be  the  opening  out 
of  a  wide  and  rich  field  for  thought,  and  then  the  experi- 
ment is  both  successful  and  fruitful. 

If  we  ask  why  in  some  cases  the  experiment  proves 
fruitful  in  consequences  and  in  others  not  so,  the  answer 
must  be  looked  for  in  the  intrinsic  nature  of  the  subject- 
matter.  The  essential  requisite  is  a  relational  system 
such  that  given  certain  relations  others  are  necessarily 
determined  without  reference  to  further  data.  Some 
important  developments  in  this  direction  depend  on  serial 
order.  The  subject-matter  exhibits  what  Herbart  used 
to  call  a  Reihen-form  or  complex  of  Rcihen-formcn.  In 
ultimate  analysis  there  is  serial  order  wherever  the  rela- 
tion of  betvveenness  or  intermediacy  (Herbart's  Zwischeri) 
is  found.  A  number  lies  between  numbers  in  a  numerical 
series,  a  position  in  space  between  other  positions,  a  part 
or  a  moment  of  time  between  other  parts  or  moments  of 
time,  a  musical  note  of  a  certain  pitch  between  other 
notes  higher  and  lower  than  it.  The  more  complex  and 
systematic  is  this  serial  connection  including  serial  inter- 
connection and  correspondence  of  series,  the  more  wide 
and  fruitful  is  the  field  for  abstract  thinking. 

VIII.  ABSTRACT  THINKING 

§  9.  Abstraction  may  be  regarded  as  a  means  of 
eliminating  the  conditions  of  the  error  of  ignorance.  By 
abstraction  we  can  so  select  our  object  that  each  step  of 
cognitive  process  shall  proceed  merely  from  the  given 
data  to  the  exclusion  of  unexplored  conditions  so  that 
the  judgment  depends  purely  on  experience  a  priori. 
Take  such  a  judgment  as  7  +  3  =  10.  Here  equality  to 
10  is  and  is  meant  to  be  something  which  merely  depends 
on  the  nature  of  7  and  of  3  and  on  the  result  of  the 
process  of  adding.  For  this  reason  the  judgment  is 


40  G.  F.  STOUT  i 

called  necessary.  It  does  not  therefore  follow  that  it 
must  be  true,  but  only  that  its  truth  or  falsehood  depends 
on  the  known  data  and  on  nothing  else.  Hence,  if  it  is 
true,  it  is  necessarily  true,  and  if  it  is  false,  it  is  neces- 
sarily false.  Only  one  condition  of  error -is  excluded  by 
abstraction  :  error  will  not  be  due  to  ignorance  and  con- 
sequent presumption  on  partial  knowledge.  None  the 
less  inadvertence  and  confusion  may  still  lead  to  mistakes. 
But  even  these  sources  of  illusion  may  disappear  when  the 
data  from  which  we  start  are  sufficiently  simple.  Thus, 
abstract  thinking  leads  to  a  large  body  of  knowledge  which 
may  be  regarded  as  certain. 

It  may  be  said  that  abstract  thinking  plays  tricks 
with  its  abstract  object.  It  does  not  merely  fasten  on 
certain  features  of  the  actual  world  and  consider  their 
intrinsic  nature,  to  the  disregard  of  all  else.  It  transforms 
the  object  of  its  selective  attention  and  gives  it  forms  and 
relations  which  have  not  been  found  in  the  actual  world 
and  perhaps  may  never  have  actual  existence.  The 
process  of  mathematical  definition  which  is  the  very  life- 
blood  of  the  science  consists  mainly  in  constructions  of 
this  kind.  The  perfect  fluid  or  the  perfect  circle  of  the 
mathematician  are  typical  examples. 

At  the  first  blush,  it  would  seem  that  in  such  construc- 
tions we  are  leaving  the  real  world  for  figments  of  our 
own  making.  But  this  is  not  so.  All  such  construction 
is  in  its  essential  import  an  experimental  activity.  In  it 
we  are  active  only  in  order  that  we  may  be  passive.  We 
operate  on  the  object  only  in  order  that  we  may  give  it 
an  opportunity  of  manifesting  its  own  independent  nature. 
And  the  object  always  is  or  ought  to  be  some  actual 
feature  of  concrete  existence.  The  constructive  process 
has  two  main  functions.  It  may  either  be  (i)  a  means 
of  fixing  and  defining  the  abstract  object  in  its  abstract- 
ness,  or  (2)  a  way  of  developing  its  nature.  Constructions 
of  the  first  kind  are  merely  instruments  of  selective 
attention — vehicles  of  abstraction.  They  enable  us  to 
represent  the  abstract  object  in  such  a  way  that  we  can 
deal  with  it  conveniently  and  effectively.  The  conception 


i  ERROR  41 

of  a  perfect  fluid  is  an  excellent  example  of  this  procedure. 
Fluidity  actually  exists  in  the  concrete  inasmuch  as  fluid 
substances  actually  exist.  But  the  mathematician  cannot 
investigate  fluidity  effectively  under  the  special  conditions 
of  its  existence  in  the  particular  fluids  known  to  him, 
such  as  water.  For  all  these  fluids  are  only  more  or  less 
fluid.  They  are  also  more  or  less  viscous,  and  this  intro- 
duces a  complication  which  he  is  unable  to  disentangle. 
To  meet  this  difficulty  he  frames  the  conception  of  a 
perfect  fluid.  In  studying  the  perfect  fluid,  he  investigates 
fluidity  without  reference  to  the  complications  arising 
from  the  partial  viscosity  of  known  fluids.  When  the 
conception  is  once  formed,  the  perfect  fluid  manifests  an 
independent  nature  of  its  own  which  thought  does  not 
make  but  finds.  And  whatever  may  be  found  to  be  true 
of  it  is  true  of  all  particular  fluids  in  so  far  as  they  are 
fluid.  It  holds  good  of  fluids  as  such.  The  body  of 
judgments  thus  formed  expresses  the  nature  of  fluidity, 
and  fluidity  is  an  actual  feature  of  the  concrete  world. 
Geometrical  space  is  a  construction  of  a  similar  kind. 
The  geometer,  as  such,  is  interested  merely  in  the  nature 
of  space  and  spatial  configuration.  His  only  reason  for 
referring  to  the  contents  of  space  is  that  the  conception 
of  figure  involves  demarcation  of  one  portion  of  space 
from  another  by  some  difference  of  content.  Otherwise, 
he  has  no  concern  with  the  particular  things  which  are 
extended  in  space  or  with  the  physical  conditions  of  their 
existence.  Accordingly,  he  fixes  and  formulates  his 
abstract  object  by  framing  the  conception  of  a  space  in 
which  the  distribution  of  contents  is  to  be  limited  by 
spatial  conditions,  and  these  only.  This  conception  enables 
him  to  represent  his  abstract  object  in  such  a  way  that  he 
can  deal  with  it  effectively,  unhampered  by  irrelcvancies. 

In  the  second  kind  of  construction,  we  develop  the 
nature  of  our  abstract  object.  \Ve  begin  by  distinguish- 
ing some  general  feature  of  the  concrete  world  which  is 
initially  presented  to  us  in  certain  particular  forms.  But 
as  soon  as  we  consider  this  feature  abstractly,  we  discover 
that  in  its  own  intrinsic  nature  it  is  capable  of  other 


42  G.  F.   STOUT  i 

determinations  which  have  not  been  ascertained  to  exist 
in  the  concrete.  Reality  belongs  to  such  constructions 
inasmuch  as  they  express  the  real  nature  of  a  real  feature 
of  concrete  existence.  The  determinations  which  we 
ascribe  to  the  abstract  object  are  not  figments  of  our  own. 
They  are  so  founded  in  the  nature  of  our  object  as  to  be 
necessarily  possible.  But  it  is  only  to  this  extent  that 
they  claim  to  be  real.  Geometrical  construction  furnishes 
a  familiar  example.  The  term  figure,  as  ordinarily  used, 
implies  demarcation  ;  it  implies  the  bounding  off  of  one 
portion  of  extension  from  another  by  some  difference  in 
the  character  of  the  extended  contents.  Now  it  may  be 
doubted  l  whether  in  the  physical  world  or  in  our  own 
mental  imagery  extended  contents  are  ever  so  arranged 
that  their  boundaries  form  perfectly  straight  lines,  or 
exactly  equal  lines,  or  perfect  circles,  or  perfect  spheres. 
None  the  less  these  conceptions  express  the  actual  nature 
of  space,  and  to  this  extent  they  have  an  indisputable 
claim  to  be  regarded  as  real.  If  we  consider  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  contents  of  space  as  conditioned  only  by  the 
nature  of  space,  it  must  be  possible  for  adjoining  surfaces 
to  bound  each  other  so  as  to  form  a  perfectly  straight 
line  ;  and  the  same  holds  good  for  other  perfect  figures. 
To  understand  this  we  must  note  that  all  demarcated 
figure  presupposes  what  we  may  call  undemarcated  figure  ; 
all  delineated  lines  presuppose  undelineated  lines.  A 
particle  cannot  move  so  as  to  describe  a  line  unless  the 
path  it  is  to  traverse  already  exists.  In  any  portion  of 
solid  space  there  must  be  any  number  of  undemarcated 
surfaces  which  are  perfectly  plane,  and  in  each  plane  there 
must  be  any  number  of  undemarcated  lines  which  are 
perfectly  straight  and  of  circles  which  are  perfectly 
circular.2  The  geometrical  possibility  of  demarcated  figures 
simply  consists  in  the  actual  existence  of  corresponding 
undemarcated  figures.  From  this  point  of  view,  such 
geometrical  constructions  as  the  perfect  circle  are  neces- 
sarily possible.  They  express  the  actual  nature  of  space, 

1    I  do  not  affirm  that  the  doubt  is  ultimately  justified. 
•  Cf.   Hallam's  Criticism  of  Locke  in  his  History  of  European  Literature. 


i  ERROR  43 

and  are,  in  this  sense,  real.  But  it  is  only  in  this  sense 
that  the  geometer  regards  them  as  real. 

It  may  be  said  that  after  all  we  do  not  know  whether 
such  demarcated  figures  as  the  perfect  circle  ever  actually 
exist.  I  reply  that  the  geometrician  does  not  affirm  their 
actual  existence.  What  he  does  affirm  as  actual  is  that 
constitution  of  space  on  which  the  possibility  of  these  con- 
structions is  founded.  To  affirm  a  possibility  is  to  affirm 
that  certain  conditions  A  actually  exist,  have  existed,  or  will 
exist,  of  such  a  nature  that  if  certain  other  conditions  B 
were  actualised,  something  else  C  would  be  actualised.  B 
is  hypothetical.  C  as  dependent  on  B  is  also  hypothetical. 
But  A  is  actual  ;  and  apart  from  A  the  hypothetical  pro- 
position would  have  no  meaning.  In  the  present  instance, 
C  is  the  existence  of  such  demarcated  figures  as  the  perfect 
circle  ;  B  is  the  existence  of  certain  physical  or  psycho- 
logical conditions  ;  A  is  the  actual  constitution  of  space. 
It  is  in  A  that  the  geometrician  is  interested.  Further, 
his  insight  in  regard  to  A  enables  him  to  understand  how 
and  why,  if  B  were  actualised,  C  must  necessarily  be 
actualised.  Owing  to  the  actual  nature  of  space  as 
cognised  by  him,  C  is  and  is  seen  to  be  necessarily 
possible.  Even  where  the  connection  of  antecedent  and 
consequent  lacks  this  intelligible  transparency,  it  still 
remains  true  that  every  valid  hypothetical  proposition 
expresses  the  actual  nature  of  some  specific  reality.  If 
certain  conditions  are  fulfilled,  this  acorn  will  grow  into 
an  oak.  This  means  that  the  actual  acorn  as  I  hold  it 
in  my  hand  is  actually  constituted  in  a  certain  manner. 
Similarly,  the  full  import  of  any  hypothetical  proposition 
can  only  be  expressed  by  translating  it  into  a  corre- 
spondingly specific  categorical  proposition. 

As  a  last  example  of  abstract  thinking  we  may  refer 
to  the  science  of  number.  Numbered  groups  of  existing 
things  must  be  distinguished  from  pure  number.  There 
arc,  let  us  say,  three  eggs  in  this  basket  and  three  terms 
in  a  syllogism.  Here  we  have  only  two  distinct  groups 
of  three,  because  there  arc  rnly  two  groups  of  countable 
things  to  be  numbered.  But  if  we  ignore  the  adjectival 


44  G.   F.  STOUT  , 

relation  of  number  to  something  else  which  is  counted, 
we  find  that  an  interminable  series  of  groups  of  three  is 
necessarily  possible.  It  may  be  said  that  number  must 
always  be  the  number  of  something.  In  a  sense,  this  is 
true.  But  the  something  may  be  anything  whatever  if 
only  it  is  capable  of  being  numbered.  Thus  pure  number 
is  not  considered  as  an  adjective  of  anything  except  of  the 
numerable  as  such.  This  is  equivalent  to  making  it 
merely  an  adjective  of  itself  and  therefore  not  an  adjective 
at  all.  It  is  not  an  adjective  because  the  conception  of 
the  numerable  as  such  is  included  in  the  abstract  con- 
ception of  number  itself.  Now  pure  number  thus  defined 
is  certainly  real  inasmuch  as  it  has  a  positive  and 
determinate  nature  to  which  our  thought  concerning  it 
may  or  may  not  conform.  We  can  discover  arithmetical 
truths  and  we  can  make  arithmetical  blunders.  Further 
the  field  for  thought  which  has  pure  number  for  its  object 
is  inexhaustible  in  range  and  complexity.  A  mind  such 
as  that  of  Aristotle's  deity  might  occupy  itself  for  ever 
with  abstract  number  and  nothing  else  to  all  eternity 
without  exhausting  its  resources.  So  long  as  it  was 
interested  in  this  object  there  would  be  no  reason  why 
it  should  turn  to  any  other. 

IX.  CERTAINTY 

§  10.  In  the  initial  statement  of  our  problem  stress  was 
laid  on  the  apparent  fact  that  the  unreal  in  erroneous  belief 
is  present  to  consciousness  in  the  same  manner  as  the  real 
in  true  belief.  We  have  now  to  point  out  that  this  is  not 
always  so.  It  is  not  so  where  the  essential  conditions  of 
the  possibility  of  error  are  absent.  For,  in  such  cases,  a 
question  answers  itself  so  as  to  render  doubt  meaningless. 
This  holds  good  for  my  assertion  of  my  own  existence  as 
a  conscious  being  and  for  such  propositions  as  "  2  -+•  I  =  3  " 
or  "  Trilateral  figures  are  triangular."  In  instances  of  this 
kind  we  can  raise  a  doubt  only  by  abandoning  the  proper 
question  for  another  which  is  irrelevant.  We  may,  for 
instance,  ask:  How  far  can  we  trust  our  faculties?  But 


i  ERROR  45 

inquiries  of  this  sort  are  futile  and  even  nonsensical. 
They  presuppose  a  meaningless  separation  of  the  thinking 
process  from  what  is  thought  of,  and  then  proceed  to  ask 
how  far  the  thinking  process,  regarded  merely  as 
someone's  private  psychical  affection  can  be  "  trusted  "  to 
reveal  a  reality  extraneous  to  it.  In  all  cognition,  what 
we  "  trust "  is  not  the  psychical  process  of  thinking  or 
perceiving,  but  the  thing  itself  which  is  thought  of  or 
perceived — the  thing  concerning  which  we  raise  a  question. 

It  is  urged  by  Mr.  Bradley  that  all  propositions,  except 
perhaps  certain  assertions  concerning  the  Absolute  as  such, 
must  be  more  or  less  erroneous.  His  reason  is  that  they 
are  all  conditional  and  that  their  conditions  are  never 
fully  known.  Whatever  exists,  exists  within  the  universe 
and  it  is  conditioned  by  the  whole  constitution  of  the 
universe.  But  if  what  exists  within  a  whole  is  con- 
ditioned by  so  existing,  no  assertion  as  to  what  exists  is 
true  if  stated  apart  from  this  condition.  This  argument 
seems  to  involve  a  confusion.  It  confuses  conditions  of 
the  truth  of  a  proposition  with  conditions  of  that  which  is 
stated  in  the  proposition.1  When  I  say, — "  If  this 
witness  is  to  be  trusted,  Jones  committed  the  theft,"  the 
"if"  introduces  a  condition  of  the  first  kind.  It  suggests 
uncertainty.  When  I  say,  "  If  a  figure  is  trilateral  it  is 
triangular,"  the  "if"  introduces  a  condition  of  the 
second  kind.  It  does  not  suggest  uncertainty.  My  own 
existence  as  a  conscious  being  has  conditions  far  too 
complex  and  obscure  for  me  to  discover.  But  these 
conditions  do  not  condition  the  truth  of  the  proposition 
that  I  exist.  The  inverse  is  the  case.  Because  I  am 
certain  that  I  exist,  I  am  certain  that  all  the  conditions 
of  my  existence,  whatever  they  may  be,  exist  also.  Be 
they  what  they  may,  they  are  all  logically  included  in  the 
import  of  my  thought  when  I  affirm  my  own  existence. 

Mr.  Bradley's  contention  seems  to  rest  on  the  assump- 
tion that,  unless   the  universe   is   completely  known,  every 


46  G.  F.  STOUT  i 

assertion  or  denial  about  its  contents  must  be  liable  to 
the  error  of  ignorance,  or  rather,  must  actually  incur  the 
error  of  ignorance.  Since  we  do  not  know  everything,  it 
is  assumed  that  there  always  may  be,  or  rather,  must  be 
something  unknown  which  would  be  seen  to  falsify  our 
judgment  if  we  knew  it.  But  this  view  is  untenable  if 
we  are  right  in  maintaining  that  there  are  limits  to  the 
possibility  of  error.  Unexplored  conditions  can  affect  the 
truth  of  a  statement  only  in  so  far  as  they  are  relevant,  and 
their  relevancy  in  each  case  depends  on  the  nature  of  the 
question  raised.  Suppose  the  question  to  be,  What  is 
the  sum  of  two  and  two  ?  By  the  very  nature  of  the 
problem  there  can  be  no  relevant  data  except  just  two 
and  two  considered  as  forming  a  sum  of  countable  units. 
It  may  be  urged  that  perhaps  the  numbers  to  be  added 
do  not  exist,  or  that  they  may  be  incapable  of  forming  a 
sum.  But  these  doubts  become  meaningless  as  soon  as 
we  try  to  count.  If  there  is  nothing  to  count  there  can 
be  no  counting.  But  the  supposition  is  absurd.  Suppose, 
per  impossibilc,  that  we  fail  to  find  anything  to  count  in 
the  first  instance.  Our  failure  may  then  be  counted  as 
one  thing  and  the  act  of  counting  it  may  be  counted  as 
another,  and  this  second  act  of  counting  as  yet  another, 
and  so  on  ad  infinitum. 

To  pursue  this  topic  farther  would  lead  outside  the 
limits  of  the  present  essay.  It  is  enough  here  to  insist 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  logically  unconditioned  truth. 
In  order  to  attain  absolute  knowledge,  it  is  by  no  means 
necessary  to  wait  until  we  have  attained  an  adequate 
knowledge  of  the  absolute.  The  truth  of  judgments 
concerning  what  is  real  is  not  logically  dependent  on  the 
truth  of  judgments  concerning  "  Reality  "  with  a  capital  R.! 

1  I  am  aware  that  this  essay  is  likely  to  raise  more  questions  in  the  reader's 
mind  than  it  even  attempts  to  solve.  Some  of  these  I  hope  to  deal  with  in  the 
future  ;  e.g.  the  relation  of  the  universal  to  the  particular,  the  nature  of  the 
material  world,  and  the  nature  and  possibility  of  thought  as  dependent  on  the 
constitution  of  the  Absolute.  In  dealing  with  these  topics,  I  hope  to  develop 
more  fully  the  grounds  of  that  divergence  from  Mr.  Bradley  which  is  referred  to 
in  §  10  and  implied  elsewhere. 


II 

AXIOMS    AS    POSTULATES 
BY  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER 

I.  THE  GROWTH  OK  EXPERIENCE 

1.  Agreement  that  the  world  is  experience  +  connecting  principles — why  we 

should  start  rather  than  conclude  with  this. 

2.  But  (a)  whose  experience  ?     Ours.      Why  self  cannot  be  analysed  away  ; 

why  knowledge  of  self  depends  on  experience. 

3.  (b)   Experience  of  what  ?     The  world.      But  what  the  world  is,  it  is  not 

yet  possible  to  say  completely. 

4.  (i)  The  World  not  ready-made  datum  but  constructed  by  a  process  of 

evolution, 

5.  (2)  i.e.  of  trial  or  experiment — original  flexibility  or  indeterminateness 

of  world.  Experiment  suggested  by  practical  needs — conscious  and 
unconscious  experimenting. 

6.  (3)   Limits   of  experimenting — 'matter'   as    resisting    medium — impossi- 

bility of  saying  what  it  is  in  itself.  Conception  of  material  world 
developing  in  experience.  Value  of  Aristotelian  description  of  a 
V\TI  capable  of  being  moulded. 

7.  (4)  The  'World,'  therefore,   is  what  is  made  of  it — plastic.      How  far, 

to  be  determined  only  by  trying.  But  methodologically  plasticity 
assumed  to  be  complete.  Provisional  character  of  our  '  facts.' 

8.  Bearing  of  this   'pragmatism''  or  '  radical  empiricism*  on  the  nature  of 

axioms.  Their  origin  as  postulates  to  which  we  try  to  get  world  to 
conform.  Contrast  with  the  old  empiricism  and  apriorism. 

II.  CRITICISM  OF   EMPIRICISM 

9.  (i)    Its    standpoint    psychological,    (2)    intellectualist,    (3)    axioms    pre- 

supposed in  the  experience  which  is  supposed  to  impress  them  on  us — 
Mill's  admissions,  (4)  derivation  not  historical,  but  ex  pott  facto  recon- 
struction, (5)  its  incompleteness,  (6)  impossibility  of  really  tracing 
development  of  axioms  and  so  unprogressiveness. 

III.  CRITICISM  or  APRIORISM 

10-25.    Its  superficial    plausibility    and    rc.il    obscurity.        Fallacy   of   inferring 

from  §  9  (3)  that  there  are  a  f'riori  truths. 
II.    How   postulates  also    yield   'universality'   and    'necessity.'      'Necessity' 

and  need. 

47 


48  F.   C.   S.  SCHILLER  n 

12.  'Condition  of  all  possible  experience'  means?     Might  be  (i)  cause  or 

psychical  antecedent,  (2)  presupposition  of  reflection  (logical),  or  (3) 
ethical  or  usthetical.  Objections. 

13.  Meaning  of  '  a  priori ';  (i)  logical  or  (2)  psychological  I     Equivocations  of 

apriorist  authority. 

14-18.  The  a  priori  as  logical.  But  why  analyse  in  Kant's  way?  Exclusive 
correctness  of  Kantian  analysis  not  to  be  based  either  (i)  on  its  a  priori 
truth,  or  (2)  on  experience  of  its  satisfactory  working.  Else  why  should 
Kantians  have  tried  to  better  it  ? 

1 5.  Kant's  derivation  of  his  analysis  from  psychology. 

1 6.  Even  if  it  were  satisfactory,  no  proof  that  it  would  be  the  only  or  the 

best  possible. 

17.  If  a  priori  is   not   in   time,    its  superiority   to   the   a  posteriori  merely 

honorific. 

1 8.  Kant's  analysis  neither  simple  nor  lucid. 

19-22.  A  priori  as  psychical  fact.  But  if  so,  has  it  (i)  been  correctly 
described?  (2)  how  is  it  distinguished  from  innate  idea?  (3)  does  not 
epistemology  merge  in  psychology  ? 

20.  As  facts  a  priori  truths  have  a  history,  which  must  be  inquired  into. 

21.  A  priori  faculties  tautologous,  and 

22.  should  not  be  treated  as  ultimate. 

23.  Result    that   science   of  epistemology   rests   on   systematic   confusion   of 

alternative  interpretations  of  apriority.  The  proper  extension  of  logic 
and  psychology. 

24.  Intellectualism  of  both  apriorism  and  empiricism  incapacitates  them  from 

recognising  unity  and  activity  of  organism.  I  low  this  maybe  recognised 
by  deriving  axioms  from  a  volitional  source  by  postulation. 

25.  Kant's  recognition  of  postulation  in  ethics — its  conflict  with  his  'critical' 

theory  of  knowledge  — resulting  dualism  intolerable.  Hence  either 
(i)  suppress  the  Practical  Reason  or  preferably  (2)  extend  postulation 
to  Theoretic  Reason. 

IV.  SOME  CHARACTERISTICS  OK  POSTULATION 

26.  Postulates   at    first    tentative    and    not    always   successful  —  their    various 

stages  and  common  origin — the  theoretic  possibility  of  changing  axioms 
not  practically  to  be  feared. 

27.  Postulates  not  a  coherent  system  inter  se  except  as  rooted  in  personality. 

V.  THE  POSTULATION  OK  IDENTITY 

28.  Not   to   be  derived   out  of  nothing,  but  out   of  a  prior  psychical   fact  on 

the  sentient  level  of  consciousness — why  consciousness  itself  cannot  be 
derived — its  characteristics  on  the  sentient  level. 

29.  Hence  identity    (of  self)    first  felt   in    the    coherence   and    continuity   of 

mental  processes,  and  forms  basis  for  the  postulation  of  identity — the 
practical  necessity  of  recognising  the  'same  '  in  the  '  like.' 

30.  Once  postulated,  identity  proves  a  great  success,  though  never  completely 

realised  in  fact.  Stages  of  identity- postulation  :  (i)  recognition  of 
others  and  objects  of  perception.  But  these  change  and  so  do  not 
provide  a  stable  standard  of  comparison.  Hence  (2)  postulation  of 
ideally  identical  selves. 

31.  (5)    Meaning  demands  absolute  identity  and   recognition   leads  to  cogni- 

tion— advantage  of  classification  by  '  universals '  which  abstract  from 
differences. 


ii  AXIOMS   AS   POSTULATES  49 

32.  (4)  The  use   of  language,   i.e.    identifiable   symbols,  connected  with   the 

demand  for  identity. 

33.  Logical  bearings  of  this  doctrine.     The  practical  purpose  of  the  judgment 

as  the  clue  to  the  meaning  of  predication  and  as  determining  the  limits 
to  which  abstraction  shall  be  carried. 

34.  Limitations  and  conventions  on  which  the  logical  use  of  identity  depends. 


VI.  OTHER  POSTULATES 

35.  The  concurrent  development  of  consciousness  of  'self  and  '  other  '  =  the 
'external  world,'  postulated  to  account  for  felt  unsatisfactoriness  of 
experience. 

39.    Postulation  of  Contradiction  and  Excluded  Middle. 

37.    Hypothesis  a  form  of  postulation. 

jS.  Causation  a  demand  for  something  whereby  we  can  control  events.  Its 
various  formulations  relative  to  our  purposes.  Sufficient  Reason. 
The  absolutely  satisfactory  as  'self-evident.'  The  infinite  regress  of 
reasons  and  causes  limited  by  the  purpose  of  the  inquiry. 

39.  Postulate  of  '  Uniformity  of  Nature.'  Suggested  by  gleams  of  regularity 
amid  primitive  chaos.  Methodological  advantage  of  postulating  com- 
plete regularity.  Its  practical  success. 

40-3.  The  Space  and  Time  Postulates.  Kant's  nine  Anschaitiing  a  hybrid 
between  perception  and  conception  and  so  a  confusion  of  psychology 
and  logic.  Really  psychological  data  have  served  as  basis  for  concep- 
tual constructions  which  are  methodological  postulates. 

41.  Construction  of  physical  space  out  of  sensory  data.      Geometrical   space 

a  construction  to  calculate  behaviour  of  real  bodies.  Antithesis  between 
qualities  of  perceptual  and  conceptual  space — reasons  for  postulating 
the  latter. 

42.  Alternative  conceptual  constructions  of  '  metageometry.'     Their  obscurity 

due  to  their  greater  complexity  and  uselessness.  A  conceptual  space 
is  valid  in  so  far  as  useful,  but  never  real. 

43.  Time:   (l)  subjective,  (2)  objective,  (3)  conceptual,      (i)  Too  variable  to 

be  useful,  (2)  a  social  necessity,  but  relative,  (3)  a  postulate. 

44.  Other  postulates,  e.g.  substance,  passed  over. 

45-7.  Postulates  not  yet  fully  axiomatic.  ( I )  Teleology— its  derivation  from 
the  postulate  of  knowableness.  Necessity  of  anthropomorphism. 
Rational  human  action  Ideological.  Why  this  is  not  extended  by 
science  to  nature.  Its  misuse  by  professed  believers  —  possibility  of 
future  use. 

46.  intimately   mechanical    methods    imply    teleology,   assuming    that    world 

is  partly  conformable  to  our  ideals.  But  part  being  given,  we  must 
assume  all.  Postulation  as  illustrating  the  teleology  of  axioms. 

47.  (2)  Religious  postulates— personality  and  goodness  of  Clod     immortality. 


VII.  CONCI.UDINC,  REFLECTIONS 

48.  The  psychological   possibility  of   instinctive  postulation   and    its   relation 

to  logical  justification. 

49.  The   method   of  origins   never   give     complete  explanation.      1'ut  validity 

must    be    connected    with    origin.       Completeness    unattainable    while 
knowledge  is  still  growing. 

50.  Effects  on   philosophy-    a  return    to    practice   and   a    perception    of    the 

inadequacy  of  intcllectualism. 

E 


50  F.  C.   S.   SCHILLER  n 

51.  Belief  in  the  alleged  incompetence  of  the  reason  due  to  (i)  the  putting 

of  questions  which  have  no  practical  value  and  ultimate  meaning, 
(2)  'antinomies.'  But  these  at  bottom  volitional  and  due  to  a  refusal 
to  choose  between  conflicting  aims.  E-g-  the  '  insoluble  mystery  of 
evil.'  Methodological  necessity  of  assuming  all  real  problems  to  be 
soluble. 

52.  Gain    to    philosophy  because  (i)  more    responsibility  felt  about    volun- 

tary confusions  of  thought  which  (2)  are  more  easily  remedied  and 
to  which  (3)  the  young  are  not  pledged.  Invigorating  effect  of  Prag- 
matism. 


I 

§  i.  THE  first  survey  of  his  subject  ought  to  be  sufficient 
to  appal  the  intending  writer  on  almost  any  philosophic 
topic.  The  extent,  variety,  and  persistence  of  the  diverg- 
ences of  opinion  which  he  finds  are  such  that  he  needs 
to  be  possessed  of  unusual  faith  and  courage  not  to 
despair  of  convincing  even  an  unprejudiced  reader — and 
in  philosophy  where  shall  he  be  found  ? — that  his  under- 
taking holds  out  any  prospect  of  scientific  advance.  For 
it  needs  no  little  philosophic  insight  to  perceive  that 
these  divergences,  instead  of  discrediting  Philosophy,  are 
really  a  subtle  tribute  to  its  dignity.  They  testify  that 
in  our  final  attitude  towards  life  our  n<liolc  personality  must 
be  concerned,  and  tend  to  form  the  decisive  factor  in  the 
adoption  of  a  metaphysic.  As  soon  as  a  metaphysic 
attempts  to  be  more  than  '  a  critical  study  of  First  Pre- 
judices,' and  essays  to  be  constructive,  it  will  always  come 
upon  a  region  where  different  men  argue  differently,  and 
yet  with  equal  cogency,  from  (apparently)  the  same 
premisses.  The  most  reasonable  explanation  of  this 
phenomenon  is  to  admit  that  as  the  men  are  different, 
and  differ  in  their  experience,  neither  the  data  which 
have  to  be  valued,  nor  the  standards  by  which  they  are 
valued,  can  really  be  the  same.  Indeed,  the  whole  history 
of  philosophy  shows  that  the  fit  of  a  man's  philosophy  is 
(and  ought  to  be)  as  individual  as  the  fit  of  his  clothes, 
and  forms  a  crushing  commentary  on  the  intolerant 
craving  for  uniformity  which  ineffectually  attempts  to 
anticipate  the  slow  achievement  of  a  real  harmony  by 
the  initial  fallacies  and  brusque  assumptions  of  a  '  cheap 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  51 

and  easy'  monism.  It  behoves  the  true  philosopher, 
therefore,  to  be  tolerant,  and  to  recognise  that  so  long  as 
men  are  different,  their  metaphysics  must  be  different,  and 
that  even  so,  nay  for  this  very  reason,  any  philosophy  is 
better  than  none  at  all. 

But  though  the  ultimate  differences  of  philosophic 
opinion  are  probably  too  deeply  rooted  in  human  idio- 
syncrasy to  be  eradicated  by  any  force  of  argument,  it  is 
none  the  less  conducive  to  the  progress  of  every  philo- 
sophic discussion  that  some  common  ground  of  (at  least 
apparent  and  preliminary)  agreement  should  be  found  on 
which  the  rival  views  may  test  their  strength.  This  is 
accordingly  what  I  have  tried  to  do,  though  it  was  not 
without  difficulty  that  I  seemed  to  discover  two  funda- 
mental points  of  initial  agreement  which  would,  I  think, 
be  admitted  by  nearly  all  who  have  any  understanding  of 
the  terms  employed  in  philosophic  discussion.  The  first 
of  these  is  that  the  whole  world  in  which  we  live  is 
experience  and  built  up  out  of  nothing  else  than  experi- 
ence. The  second  is  that  experience,  nevertheless,  does 
not,  alone  and  by  itself,  constitute  reality,  but,  to  construct 
a  world,  needs  certain  assumptions,  connecting  principles, 
or  fundamental  truths,  in  order  that  it  may  organise  its 
crude  material  and  transmute  itself  into  palatable,  manage- 
able, and  liveable  forms. 

Acceptance  of  these  two  propositions  does  not  perhaps 
carry  us  far,  and  I  have  no  desire  to  exaggerate  its 
controversial  value.  For,  as  soon  as  we  attempt  to  go  a 
step  farther  and  ask  what,  more  precisely,  is  this  ex- 
perience, out  of  which,  and  for  the  sake  of  which,  it  is 
agreed  that  all  things  are  constructed,  we  speedily  realise 
that  we  have,  here  also,  stumbled  unwittingly  into  a  very 
quagmire  of  metaphysical  perplexities.  It  is  indeed  a 
convenient  fashion  in  high  philosophic  quarters  to  treat 
the  harmless  truism  with  the  en  inciation  of  which  I  have 
ventured  to  start,  as  the  final  term  in  a  protracted  course 
of  dialectical  philosophy,  and  to  put  forward  Experience 
(written  of  course  with  very  large  capitals)  as  the  ultimate 
explanation  of  all  things.  My  excuse  for  not  treating  my 


52  F.  C.  S.   SCHILLER  i, 

readers  (if  any)  to  a  similar  performance  must  be  that  I 
have  neither  the  heart  nor  the  head  for  feats  of  this  kind, 
and  that  they  can  always  fall  back  upon  the  consoling 
dictum  that  experience  is  Experience  (with  the  addition 
'  of  the  Absolute '  thrown  in,  if  they  are  very  inquisitive), 
when  they  have  found  that  my  explorations  in  a  very 
different  direction  lead  to  nothing  interesting  or  valuable. 

§  2.  I  shall  accordingly  proceed  to  divide  my  question 
into  two.  If  all  the  world  be  experience  and  what  is 
needed  to  understand  that  experience,  (i)  whose  experi- 
ence is  it?  and  (2)  of  what  is  it  experience?  To  both 
questions  again  some  will  be  satisfied  to  reply — '  of  the 
Absolute,  of  course.'  If  that  really  contents  them,  and 
is  all  they  wish  to  know,  they  had  better  read  no  further. 
For  my  part  I  hold  that  this  answer,  even  if  it  were  true 
and  intelligible,  is  of  no  scientific  or  practical  value  what- 
soever, and  hence  cannot  be  of  any  philosophic  value 
either,  except  to  votaries  of  philosophies  which  have  no 
scientific  or  practical  value. 

To  the  first  question,  therefore,  I  shall  make  bold  to 
answer,  '  our  experience,'  or,  if  that  imply  too  much 
agreement  among  philosophers,  and  I  may  not  take  a 
common  world  for  granted,  more  precisely,  '  my 
experience.' 

Here  again  I  must  be  prepared  to  be  assailed  by  a 
furious  band  of  objectors  intent  on  asking  me — "  Who 
are  you  ?  How  dare  you  take  yourself  for  granted  ? 
Have  you  not  heard  how  the  self  is  a  complex  psycho- 
logical product,  which  may  be  derived  and  analysed 
away  in  a  dozen  different  ways?  And  do  you  actually 
propose  to  build  your  philosophy  upon  so  discredited  a 
foundation  ?  " 

To  all  this  the  simplicity  of  my  humble  reply  may,  I 
fear,  be  thought  to  savour  of  impertinence.  I  shall 
merely  say  "  Abate  your  wrath,  good  sirs,  I  beseech  you. 
I  am  right  well  aware  of  what  you  urge.  Only  I  have 
observed  also  a  few  facts  which  in  your  scientific  zeal  you 
have  been  pleased  to  overlook.  In  the  first  place  I  notice 
that  these  analyses  of  the  self  you  allude  to  are  various. 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  53 

and  that  so  the  self  may  find  safety  in  the  very  multitude 
of  its  tormentors.  I  observe,  secondly,  that  the  analysis 
is  in  every  case  effected  by  a  self.  And  it  always  gives 
me  a  turn  when  the  conclusion  of  an  argument  subverts 
its  own  premiss.  Next  I  note  that  these  analyses  being 
the  products  of  a  self,  must,  if  that  self  is  (like  my  own) 
rational,  serve  some  purpose.  But  unless  that  purpose  is 
the  highest  of  all  (which  in  your  case  I  see  no  reason 
to  suppose),  the  validity  of  the  whole  procedure  will  be 
relative,  and  its  value  methodological.  It  may  be 
excellent,  therefore,  for  your  purposes  and  quite 
unsuitable  for  mine.  And,  lastly,  I  observe  that  an 
analysis  does  not  fall  from  heaven  ready  made  ;  it  is  the 
product  of  a  purposive  activity,  and  however  appalling  it 
may  sound,  it  remains  brutum  fulnicn  until  such  time  as 
somebody  chooses  to  adopt  it.  It  is  from  this  act  of 
choice,  then,  that  its  real  efficacy  springs,  and  if  I  choose 
to  analyse  differently  or  not  at  all,  if  I  find  it  convenient 
to  operate  with  the  ivhole  organism  as  the  standard  unit  in 
my  explications,  what  right  have  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
to  complain  ?  For  in  cither  case  the  choice  must  be 
justified  by  its  consequences,  by  the  experience  of  its 
working,  and  I  am  not  aware  that  anything  valuable  or 
workable  has  resulted  from  the  psychological  analyses  in 
question.  I  am  therefore  sanguine  that  the  assumption  of 
my  own  existence,  which  I  provisionally  make,  may  very 
possibly  turn  out  better  and  be  less  futile  than  any  of 
the  denials  of  the  self  which  it  may  seem  convenient  to 
maintain  for  certain  restricted  and  technical  purposes  of 
psychologies  which  neglect  their  proper  problem  in  their 
anxiety  to  be  ranked  among  the  '  natural  sciences.' 

"  As  for  the  other,  personal,  question — '  Who  am  I  ?'— 
tliat  we  shall  see.  I  say  we  pointedly,  because,  to  be  quite 
frank,  I  too  am  still  learning  what  I  am,  by  experience. 
For  unfortunately  I  was  as  little  endowed  with  any 
a  priori  knowledge  of  myself  as  of  anything  else.  Hence 
I  can  only  say,  provisionally,  that  I  am  at  least  what  I 
am,  and  what  I  am  capable  of  becoming.  For  I  have  a 
notion  that  my  career  is  not  yet  over.  In  saying  this 


54  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  u 

I  do  not,  of  course,  lay  claim  to  anything  unknowable  ;  I 
only  mean  that  I  am  not  anything  completely  known, 
either  to  myself  or  any  one  else,  until  I  cease  to  have  neiv 
experience.  And  if  you  are  content  to  share  these 
humble  attributes  and  to  be  selves  in  this  sense,  you  are 
very  welcome ! " 

§3.  I  come  next  to  the  second  question — what  is  it 
I  experience  ?  The  answer  must  be  very  similar.  My 
knowledge  of  the  object  of  experience — we  may  call  it 
'  the  world  '  for  short — is  still  imperfect  and  still  growing. 
And  so  though  I  may  provisionally  describe  it  by  all  the 
ordinary  phrases  as  '  external,'  and  material,  and  spatial, 
and  temporal,  I  do  not  attach  much  value  to  them,  and 
cannot  honestly  say  that  I  know  what  it  ultimately  is. 
For  I  do  not  know  what  it  will  ultimately  turn  into. 
Not  of  course  that  I  despair  on  that  account  of 
ultimately  answering  this  question  also  to  everybody's 
satisfaction  (and  especially  to  my  own  !  ).  Only  the 
world  of  knowledge  always  seems  to  be  painted  on  an 
uncompleted  background  of  the  unknown,  and  fresh 
knowledge  is  always  coming  in  which  modifies  the  total 
impression.  This  knowledge  is  largely  (or  perhaps 
wholly)  the  result  of  guesses  which  I  cannot  help  making, 
like  my  fathers  before  me,  for  practical  reasons.  As  for 
the  character  and  the  details  of  these  guesses,  are  they  not 
written  in  the  histories  of  human  sciences  and  religions? 

§  4.  In  reflecting  on  these  histories,  however,  I  observe 
several  things  which  seem  to  have  no  slight  bearing  on 
the  question  of  the  nature  of  the  world  and  our  knowledge. 

(i)  The  world,  as  it  now  appears,  was  not  a  ready- 
made  datum  ;  it  is  the  fruit  of  a  long  evolution,  of  a 
strenuous  struggle.  If  we  have  learnt  enough  philosophy 
to  see  that  we  must  not  only  ask  the  ontological  question. 
What  is  it  ?  but  also  the  profounder  epistemological 
question  to  which  it  leads,  Htm<  do  ivc  /://oiv  what  it 
is  ?  we  shall  realise  that  it  is  a  construction  which 
has  been  gradually  achieved,  and  that  the  toil  thereof 
dwarfs  into  insignificance  the  proverbial  labour  Rotnanam 
condcre  gcntein.  As  a  rule  we  do  not  notice  this,  parti}' 


ii  AXIOMS   AS   POSTULATES  55 

because  we  are  taught  to  neglect  the  history  of  ideas 
for  the  sake  of  burdening  our  memory  with  the  history 
of  events  (which  very  likely  did  not  happen  in  the  manner 
alleged),  partly  because  the  sciences  have  a  habit  of 
evading  the  verbal  confession  of  the  changes  which  the 
growth  of  knowledge  has  wrought  in  their  conceptions. 
Thus  the  physicist  continues  to  use  the  term  '  matter,' 
although  it  has  come  to  mean  for  him  something  very 
different  from  the  simple  experiences  of  hardness  and 
resistance  from  which  its  development  began,  and  although 
he  more  and  more  clearly  sees  both  that  he  does  not 
know  what  '  matter '  ultimately  is,  and  that  for  the 
purposes  of  his  science  he  does  not  need  to  know,  so 
long  as  the  term  stands  for  something  the  behaviour 
of  which  he  can  calculate. 

§  5.  (2)  I  observe  that  since  we  do  not  know  what 
the  world  is,  we  have  to  find  out.  This  we  do  by  trying. 
Not  having  a  ready-made  world  presented  to  us  the 
knowledge  of  which  we  can  suck  in  with  a  passive 
receptivity  (or  rather,  appearing  to  have  such  a  world 
to  some  extent  only  in  consequence  of  the  previous 
efforts  of  our  forerunners),  we  have  to  make  experiments 
in  order  to  construct  out  of  the  materials  we  start  with 
a  harmonious  cosmos  which  will  satisfy  all  our  desires 
(that  for  knowledge  included).  For  this  purpose  we 
make  use  of  every  means  that  seems  promising  :  we  try 
it  and  tve  try  if  on.  For  we  cannot  afford  to  remain 
unresistingly  passive,  to  be  impressed,  like  the  tabula  rasa  ' 
in  the  traditional  fiction,  by  an  independent  '  external 
world  '  which  stamps  itself  upon  us.  If  we  did  that,  we 
should  be  stamped  out.  But  experience  is  always  more 
than  this :  it  is  cither  experiment  or  reaction,  reaction 
upon  stimulation,  which  latter  vc  ascribe  to  the  '  external 
world.'  But  reaction  is  still  a  kind  of  action,  and  its 
character  still  depends  in  part  on  the  reacting  agent. 
Nor  have  we  am*  independent  knowledge  of  the  '  external 


56  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  „ 

world '  ;  it  is  merely  the  systematic  way  in  which  we 
construct  the  source  of  the  stimulation  on  which  we  feel 
ourselves  to  be  reacting.  Hence  even  our  most  passive 
receptivity  of  sensations  can,  and  should,  be  construed 
as  the  effortless  fruition  of  what  was  once  acquired  by 
strenuous  effort,  rather  than  as  the  primal  type  to  which 
all  experience  should  be  reduced.  In  it  we  are  living 
on  our  capital  (inherited  or  acquired),  not  helping  to  carve 
out  ('  create ')  the  cosmos,1  but  enjoying  the  fruits  of  our 
labours  (or  of  those  of  others  !).  Which  is  pleasant,  but 
not  interesting.  What  is  interesting  is  the  course  of 
the  active  experimenting  which  results  in  the  arts,  the 
sciences,  and  the  habits  on  which  our  social  organisa- 
tion rests. 

I  proceed  accordingly  to  consider  the  mass  of  experi- 
ments which  collectively  make  up  the  world-process  and 
by  their  issue  determine  the  subsequent  course  of  affairs. 
At  the  outset  there  seems  to  be  nothing  determined, 
certain,  or  fixed  about  it.  We  may  indeed  shrink  from 
the  assertion  of  an  absolute  indeterminism,  but  it  is  certain 
that  we  cannot  say  what  made  or  determined  the  character 
of  the  first  reaction,  and  that  the  first  establishment  of  a 
habit  of  reaction  is  a  matter  of  immense  difficulty.  And 
to  a  less  extent  this  indeterminateness  persists  as  the 
structure  of  the  cosmos  grows.  The  world  is  always 
ambiguous,  always  impels  us  at  certain  points  to  say, 
'  it  may  be,'  '  either  .  .  .  or,'  etc."  Nor  were  it  well 
that  it  should  grow  rigid,  unless  we  were  assured  that  it- 
would  set  in  forms  \ve  could  not  wish  to  change.  As  it 
is,  we  have  no  absolute  nor  initial  rigidity.  All  deter- 
minations are  acquired,  all  are  ratified,  by  their  working  ; 

1  It  is  significant  that  most  of  the  words  which  have  been  used  to  express 
the  conception  (?)  of  creation  are  metaphors  which  meant  originally  to  hew 
or  shape.  For  if,  as  seems  probable,  the  conception  of  absolute  '  creation ' 
('out  of  nothing1)  he  ultimately  unthinkable,  the  assumed  'metaphor'  will  be 
able  to  supply  the  true  conception. 

-  We  do  not,  of  course,  affect  the  fact  by  assuming  its  absolute  determination, 
'  if  only  we  knew  all.'  For  this  is  merely  a  postulate,  devised  to  keep  us  in 
good  heart  while  calculating,  and  in  order  that  we  may  be  able  to  forecast  the 
future.  We  may  be  able  to  achieve  the  realisation  of  this  ideal  in  a  cosmos 
absolutely  determined  and  absolutely  satisfactory,  but  at  present  it  is  not  true 
\\\'A\.  for  us  pr>ictir<illy  all  things  are  determined. 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  57 

nothing  can  be  said  to  be  absolutely  exempt  from  modi- 
fication and  amendment  by  experience  of  its  working. 

The  intellectual  cosmos  also  neither  has  nor  needs 
fixed  foundations  whose  fixity  is  an  illusion.  Like  the 
physical  universe  it  is  sustained  by  the  correspondence 
and  interplay  of  its  parts  ;  or,  if  we  prefer  it,  floats  freely 
in  a  sea  of  the  unknown,  which  now  and  again  buffets  it 
with  its  waves,  but  across  which  the  sciences  have 
established  well-travelled  routes  of  intellectual  inter- 
course. 

The  cosmos  grows,  as  we  have  said,  by  experiment. 
Such  experiment  may  have  been  random  at  first  (as 
for  methodological  purposes  we  shall  be  prone  to  assume)  ; 
at  all  events  it  was  vague,  and  its  prescience  of  its  issue 
was  probably  obscure.  In  any  case  its  direction  is 
ultimately  determined  not  so  much  by  its  initial  gropings 
as  by  the  needs  of  life  and  the  desires  which  correspond 
to  those  needs.  Thus  the  logical  structures  of  our  mental 
organisation  are  the  product  of  psychological  functions.1 

It  must  next  be  admitted  that  when  it  is  said  that 
the  world  is  constructed  by  experiment,  the  conception 
of  experiment  is  taken  very  widely  and  in  a  way  that 
extends  far  beyond  the  conscious  experiment  of  the 
scientist  who  is  fully  aware  of  what  he  does  and  what  he 
wants,  and  precisely  controls  all  the  conditions.  Of  the 
'  experimenting '  which  builds  up  the  cosmos  the  scientific 
experiment  is  only  an  extreme  case  which  even  now  is 
comparatively  rarely  realised.  Most  of  the  experimenting 
that  goes  on  is  blind  or  very  dimly  prescient,  semi- 
conscious or  quite  unconscious.  To  what  extent  there 
is  consciousness  of  the  experimenting  depends  of  course 
on  the  mental  development  of  the  beings  engaged  in  it  ; 
for  while  in  the  lowest  it  is  in.initesimal,  the  more  intel- 
ligent they  become  the  more  capable  they  are  of  taking 
the  experimenting  into  their  own  hands. 

But   from  the  experimenting  itself  there  is  no  escape  ; 

1  In  this  aspect  logic  is  related  to  psychology  as  morphology  is  to  physiology. 
A  '  logical  necessity.'  therefore,  always  rests  upon,  issues  from,  and  is  discovered 
by,  a  psychological  need.  Dr.  Bosanquet  adopts  the  comparison,  but  does  no', 
work  it  out,  in  his  Lo^i, . 


58  F.  C.   S.   SCHILLER  „ 

it  goes  on,  and  if  we  refuse  to  experiment,  we  are  ex- 
perimented with.  Nay,  in  this  sense  we  are  all  nature's 
experiments,  attempts  to  build  up  a  world  of  beings  that 
can  maintain  themselves  permanently  and  harmoniously. 
We  are  asked  as  it  were,  "  Can  you  do  this  ?  "  and  if  we 
cannot  or  will  not,  and  "  do  not  answer,"  we  are  eliminated. 
The  elimination  which  is  involved  in  this  experimenting 
habit  of  nature's  has  in  modern  times  been  widely 
recognised,  under  the  name  of  Natural  Selection  ;  its 
essence  is  that  a  large  number  of  individuals  and  varieties 
should  be  produced  on  trial  (as  '  accidental  variations ' 
or  6eia  fioipa),  and  that  upon  those  that  stood  their  trials 
best  should  devolve  the  duty  of  carrying  on  the  world. 
The  conception  of  Natural  Selection  was  suggested  by 
human  selection  ;  its  procedure  by  trying  is  so  far 
analogous  to  that  of  our  own  intelligence,  and  it  is  denied 
to  be  that  of  an  intelligence  only  because  of  a  misunder- 
standing of  the  methodological  character  of  the  postulate 
of  indefinite  variation.1  We  may  therefore  plausibly 
contend  that  if  a  superhuman  intelligence  is  active  in  the 
forming  of  the  cosmos,  its  methods  and  its  nature  are  the 
same  as  ours  ;  it  also  proceeds  by  experiment,  and  adapts 
means  to  ends,  and  learns  from  experience. 

We  see  then  that  there  are  two  excellent  reasons  for 
conceiving  the  notion  of  experiment  so  broadly.  In  the 
first  place  it  becomes  possible  thereby  to  comprehend 
under  one  head  the  infinite  complications  and  gradations 
which  are  possible  in  the  consciousness  of  the  experimenter, 
from  the  most  random  restlessness  and  the  most  blindly 
instinctive  adaptations,  to  the  most  clearly  conscious 
testing  of  an  elaborate  theory  ;  in  the  second,  it  serves 
to  bring  out  the  radically  tentative  tendency  which  runs 
through  the  whole  cosmos.  And  if  the  propriety  of  a 
phrase  may  be  held  to  atone  for  the  impropriety  of  a 
pun,  we  may  sum  up  our  result  by  saying  that  the  clue  to 
experience  must  be  found  not  in  words  but  in  deeds,  and 
that  the  method  of  nature  and  the  true  method  of  philo- 
sophy is  not  a  Dialectic  but  a  Trialectic. 

1    (T.    (.'on  ton  p.  AY:1.,  June  1897,  p.  878. 


n  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  59 

§  6.  (3)  In  describing  our  activity  in  constructing 
the  world  by  experimenting  or  making  trial,  I  may  seem 
to  have  ignored  the  subject-matter  of  the  experiment, 
that  in  which  and  the  conditions  under  which  we 
experiment.  But  of  course  I  have  no  intention  of 
denying  the  existence  of  this  factor  in  our  experience 
and,  consequently,  in  our  world.  \Ve  never  experiment 
in  vacuo ;  we  always  start  from,  and  are  limited  by, 
conditions  of  some  sort.  Just  as  our  experiment  must 
have  some  psychological  motive  to  prompt  it  and  to 
propel  us,  so  it  must  be  conditioned  by  a  resisting 
something,  in  overcoming  which,  by  skilfully  adapting 
the  means  at  our  disposal,  intelligence  displays  itself. 
Let  it  be  observed,  therefore,  that  our  activity  always 
meets  with  resistance,  and  that  in  consequence  we  often 
fail  in  our  experiments. 

But  while  there  can  be  no  dispute  as  to  the  fact  of 
this  resistance,  there  may  be  not  a  little  as  to  its  nature, 
and  no  slight  difficulty  about  defining  it  with  precision. 
It  would  be  pushing  Idealism  to  an  unprofitable  extreme 
to  revert  at  this  point  to  the  ancient  phrases  about  the 
Self  positing  its  Other  and  so  forth.  But  the  opposite 
and  more  usual  device  of  dubbing  it  an  objective  or 
material  world  which  exercises  compulsion  upon  us,  is 
also  not  free  from  objection. 

For  what  is  so  misleading  about  this  traditional 
manner  of  talking  is  that  it  implies  just  what  we  have 
seen  to  be  untrue,  viz.  that  there  is  an  objective  world 
given  independently  of  us  and  constraining  us  to 
recognise  it.  Whereas  really  it  is  never  an  independent 
fact,  but  ever  an  aspect  in  our  experience,  or  better  still, 
a  persisting  factor  in  it,  which  \  e  can  neither  isolate  nor 
get  rid  of.  Hence,  however  far  back  we  essay  to  trace 
it.  we  can  never  say  either  what  it  is  really  and  in  itself, 
or  that  it  has  disappeared.  If  we  take  it  as  it  appears 
in  our  experience  as  now  organised,  we  are,  similarly, 
met  with  the  difficulty  that  what  it  now  is  is  nothing 
definitive,  but  merely  a  term  in  a  long  development  the 
end  of  which  is  not  vet  in  si<rht.  And  if,  led  bv  such 


60  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  u 

considerations,  we  look  forward  and  declare  that  the 
objective  world  most  truly  is  whatever  it  develops  into, 
who  will  take  it  upon  himself  to  prophesy  concerning  its 
future  developments,  and  guarantee  that  it  will  always 
remain  objective  in  the  way  it  is  at  present,  that  it  will 
continue  to  resist  and  constrain  ?  For  already  it  is  only 
partially  true  that  it  constrains  us  ;  it  is  becoming 
increasingly  true  that  we  constrain  it,  and  succeed  in 
moulding  it  into  acceptable  shapes.  In  what  sense, 
therefore,  should  we  continue  to  call  '  objective  '  a  world 
which  had  ceased  to  be  objectionable  and  had  become 
completely  conformable  and  immediately  responsive  to 
our  every  desire  ? 

The  truest  account,  then,  it  would  seem  possible  to 
give  of  this  resisting  factor  in  our  experience  is  to  revive, 
for  the  purpose  of  its  description,  the  old  Aristotelian 
conception  of  '  Matter '  as  v\r/  Se/cri/cr;  TOV  et'Sou?,  as 
potentiality  of  whatever  form  we  succeed  in  imposing  on 
it.  It  may  be  regarded  as  the  raw  material  of  the 
cosmos  (never  indeed  wholly  raw  and  umvorked  upon), 
out  of  which  have  to  be  hewn  the  forms  of  life  in  which 
our  spirit  can  take  satisfaction.  To  have  lost  this  sense 
of  '  matter,'  in  the  effort  to  render  its  notion  more  precise 
and  useful  for  the  purposes  of  the  natural  sciences,  is  a 
real  loss  to  philosophy.  And  yet  the  notion  of  matter 
as  an  indeterminate  potentiality  which,  under  the  proper 
manipulations,  can  assume  the  forms  we  will,  reasserts 
itself  de  facto  whenever  the  great  physicists  set  themselves 
to  speculate  respecting  the  '  ultimate  constitution  of 
Matter.'  For  provided  only  that  their  results  enable 
them  to  calculate,  more  or  less,  the  behaviour  of  sensible 
matter,  they  never  hesitate  to  calculate  into  existence 
new  '  ethers '  and  modes  of  matter  and  to  endow  them 
with  whatever  qualities  their  purpose  demands  and  their 
imagination  suggests. 

v}  /.  (4)  The  world,  then,  is  essentially  v\i],  it  is  what 
we  make  of  it.  It  is  fruitless  to  define  it  by  what  it 
originally  was  or  by  what  it  is  apart  from  us  (?)  v\r] 
'  ai>T>]v)  ;  it  is  what  is  made  of  it.  Hence 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  61 

my  fourth  and  most  important  point  is  that  the  world  is 
plastic,  and  may  be  moulded  by  our  wishes,  if  only  we  are 
determined  to  give  effect  to  them,  and  not  too  conceited 
to  learn  from  experience,  i.e.  by  trying,  by  zv/tat  means  we 
may  do  so. 

That  this  plasticity  exists  will  hardly  be  denied,  but 
doubts  may  be  raised  as  to  how  far  it  extends.  Surely, 
it  may  be  objected,  it  is  mere  sarcasm  to  talk  of  the 
plasticity  of  the  world  ;  in  point  of  fact  we  can  never  go 
far  in  any  direction  without  coming  upon  rigid  limits  and 
insuperable  obstacles.  The  answer  surely  is  that  the 
extent  of  the  world's  plasticity  is  not  known  a  priori,  but 
must  be  found  out  by  trying.  Now  in  trying  we  can 
never  start  with  a  recognition  of  rigid  limits  and  in- 
superable obstacles.  For  if  we  believed  them  such,  it 
would  be  no  use  trying.  Hence  we  must  assume  that  we 
can  obtain  what  we  want,  if  only  we  try  skilfully  and 
perseveringly  enough.  A  failure  only  proves  that  the 
obstacles  would  not  yield  to  the  method  employed  :  it 
cannot  extinguish  the  hope  that  by  trying  again  by  other 
methods  they  could  finally  be  overcome. 

Thus  it  is  a  methodological  necessity  to  assume  that  the 
world  is  wholly  plastic,  i.e.  to  act  as  thougJi  we  believed 
this,  and  will  yield  us  what  we  want,  if  we  persevere  in 
wanting  it. 

To  what  extent  our  assumption  is  true  in  the  fullest 
sense,  i.e.  to  what  extent  it  will  work  in  practice,  time  and 
trial  will  show.  But  our  faith  is  confirmed  whenever,  by- 
acting  on  it,  we  obtain  anything  we  want  ;  it  is  checked, 
but  not  uprooted,  whenever  an  experiment  fails. 

As  a  first  attempt  to  cxpiain  how  our  struggle  to 
mould  our  experience  into  conformity  with  our  desires  is 
compatible  with  the  '  objectivity  '  of  that  experience,  the 
above  may  perhaps  suffice,  though  I  do  not  flatter  myself 
that  it  will  at  once  implant  conviction.  Indeed  I  expect 
rather  to  be  asked  indignantly- — '  Is  there  not  an  objective 
nature  which  our  experiments  do  not  make,  but  only 
discover?  Is  it  not  absurd  to  talk  as  if  our  attempts 
could  alter  the  facts?  And  is  not  reverent  submission  to 


62  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  „ 

this  pre-existing  order  the  proper  attitude  of  the  searcher 
after  truth  ? ' 

The  objection  is  so  obvious  that  the  folly  of  ignoring 
it  could  only  be  exceeded  by  that  of  exaggerating  its 
importance.  It  is  because  of  the  gross  way  in  which  this 
is  commonly  done  that  I  have  thought  it  salutary  to 
emphasise  the  opposite  aspect  of  the  truth.  We  have 
heard  enough,  and  more  than  enough,  about  the  duty  of 
humility  and  submission  ;  it  is  time  that  we  were  told 
that  energy  and  enterprise  also  are  indispensable,  and  that 
as  soon  as  the  submission  advocated  is  taken  to  mean 
more  than  rational  methods  of  investigation,  it  becomes  a 
hindrance  to  the  growth  of  knowledge.  Hence  it  is  no 
longer  important  to  rehearse  the  old  platitudes  about 
sitting  at  the  feet  of  nature  and  servilely  accepting  the 
kicks  she  finds  it  so  much  cheaper  to  bestow  than  half- 
pence. It  is  far  more  important  to  emphasise  the  other 
side  of  the  matter,  viz.  that  unless  we  ask,  we  get  nothing. 
We  must  ask  often  and  importunately,  and  be  slow  to 
take  a  refusal.  It  is  only  by  asking  that  we  discover 
whether  or  not  an  answer  is  attainable,  and  if  they  cannot 
alter  the  '  facts,'  our  demands  can  at  least  make  them 
appear  in  so  different  a  light,  that  they  arc  no  longer 
practically  the  same. 

For  in  truth  these  independent  '  facts,'  which  we  have 
merely  to  acknowledge,  are  a  mere  figure  of  speech.  The 
growth  of  experience  is  continually  transfiguring  our 
'  facts  '  for  us,  and  it  is  only  by  an  ex  post  facto  fiction 
that  we  declare  them  to  have  been  '  all  along  '  what  they 
have  come  to  mean  for  us.  To  the  vision  of  the  rudi- 
mentary eye  the  world  is  not  coloured  ;  it  becomes  so  only 
to  the  eye  which  has  developed  colour  '  sensitiveness '  :  just 
so  the  '  fact '  of  each  phase  of  experience  is  relative  to 
our  knowledge,  and  that  knowledge  depends  on  our  efforts 
and  desires  to  know.  Or,  if  we  cling  to  the  notion  of  an 
absolutely  objective  fact  of  which  the  imperfect  stages  of 
knowledge  only  catch  distorted  glimpses,  we  must  at  least 
admit  that  only  a  final  and  perfect  rounding- off  of 
knowledge  would  be  adequate  to  the  cognition  of  such 


„  AXIOMS   AS   POSTULATES  63 

fact.  The  facts  therefore  which  we  as  yet  encounter  are 
not  of  this  character :  it  may  turn  out  that  they  are  not 
what  they  seem  and  can  be  transfigured  if  we  try.  Hence 
the  antithesis  of  subjective  and  objective  is  a  false  one  : 
in  the  process  of  experience  '  subject '  and  '  object '  are 
only  the  poles,  and  the  'subject'  is  the  'positive'  pole 
from  which  proceeds  the  impetus  to  the  growth  of 
knowledge.  For  the  modifications  in  the  world,  which  we 
desire,  can  only  be  brought  about  by  our  assuming  them 
to  be  possible,  and  therefore  trying  to  effect  them.  There 
is  no  revelation  either  of  nature  or  of  God,  except  to 
those  who  have  opened  their  eyes  ;  and  we  at  best  are 
still  self-blinded  puppies. 

Even  the  notion  that  the  appearances  which  reality 
assumes  to  our  eyes  may  depend  on  the  volitional  attitude 
which  we  maintain  towards  them  is  a  truism  rather  than 
an  absurdity,1  and  nothing  is  more  reasonable  than  to 
suppose  that  if  there  be  anything  personal  at  the  bottom 
of  things,  the  way  we  behave  to  it  -must  affect  the  way  it 
behaves  to  us.  The  true  absurdity,  therefore,  lies  in  our 
ignoring  the  most  patent  facts  of  experience  in  order  to 
set  up  the  Moloch  of  a  rigid,  immutable  and  inexorable 
Order  of  Nature,  to  which  we  must  ruthlessly  immolate 
all  our  desires,  all  our  impulses,  all  our  aspirations,  and  all 
our  ingenuity,  including  that  which  has  devised  the  very 
idol  to  which  it  is  sacrificed  ! 

§  8.  The  above  sketch  of  the  nature  and  manner  of 
the  process  which  has  moulded  us  and  the  world  of  our 
experience  may  have  seemed  to  bear  but  remotely  on  the 
relations  of  Axioms  to  Postulates.  In  reality,  however, 
it  will  be  found  that  the  whole  subsequent  argument  has 
already  had  its  main  lines  mapped  out  by  our  introductory 
discussion  of  the  Weltanschauung  which  Prof.  James 
has  called  pragmatism  and  radical  empiricism.1  I '"or  when, 

1  it  is,  of  course,  psycho- 
•irptiiins  depend  on  what 

•  us    is    quite    satisfactory. 

i  amed  (or  nicknamed)  by 
their  opponents,  it  would  be  premature  to  attempt  lixi  y  of  nomenclature  until 
criticism  has  had  its  sav. 


1    Cf.  James'  Will  A>  belii-.'f,  pp.  28,  61,  103  foil, 


ogically  true  that  not  only  our  delusions  hut   also  our  /r 


we  come  prepared  to  perceive 


>erhaps,    neither  of    these   ter 


Hut  as  philosophic,  like  political,  parties  arc  commonly  i 


64  F.   C.  S.   SCHILLER  n 

as  we  must  do,  we  apply  it  to  the  theory  of  our  cognitive 
faculties  and  the  first  principles  whereby  in  knowledge  we 
elaborate  our  experience  (§  i),  it  leads  to  a  very  distinctive 
treatment  of  epistemological  problems,  differing  widely 
from  those  traditionally  in  vogue.  It  follows  that  the 
general  structure  of  the  mind  and  the  fundamental 

o 

principles  that  support  it  also  must  be  conceived  as 
growing  up,  like  the  rest  of  our  powers  and  activities,  that 
is,  by  a  process  of  experimenting,  designed  to  render  the 
world  conformable  to  our  wishes.  They  will  begin  their 
career,  that  is,  as  demands  we  make  upon  our  experience 
or  in  other  words  as  postulates,  and  their  subsequent 
sifting,  which  promotes  some  to  be  axioms  and  leads  to 
the  abandonment  of  others,  which  it  turns  out  to  be  too 
expensive  or  painful  to  maintain,  will  depend  on  the 
experience  of  their  working. 

The  contrast  with  both  of  the  traditional  accounts  of 
the  matter,  both  that  of  the  old  empiricism  and  of 
epistemological  apriorism  is  well  marked,  and  I  hope  to 
show  that  its  superiority  is  no  less  palpable. 

The  truth  is  that  both  the  traditional  accounts  of  the 
nature  of  Axioms  arc  demonstrably  wrong,  and  though  to 
give  such  a  demonstration  ma}*  appear  a  digression,  it  will 
ultimately  facilitate  our  progress.  I  shall  accordingly 
indulge  in  a  criticism,  which  will  show  that  the  axiomatic 
first  principles,  whereby  we  organise  and  hold  together  our 
knowledge,  are  neither  the  products  of  a  passive  experienc- 
ing, nor  yet  ultimate  and  inexplicable  laws  or  facts  of  our 
mental  structure,  which  require  from  us  no  effort  to  attain 
comprehension  but  only  recognition  and  reverence  as  'a 
priori  necessary  truths.'  In  the  case  of  empiricism  the 
criticism  will  be  comparatively  brief  and  easy,  because  its 
inadequacy  is  pretty  generally  conceded  ;  apriorism  will 
demand  a  lengthier  and  more  difficult  discussion,  because 
it  has  attempted  to  conceal  its  inadequacy  behind  so  many 
technicalities  of  language,  so  man}'  obscurities  of  argu- 
mentation and  a  fundamental  duplicity  in  its  standpoint. 


n  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  65 

II 

§  9.  Taking  then  the  old  empiricism  first,  we  observe 
that  there  seems  to  be  little  doubt  about  its  standpoint. 
Its  derivation  of  the  axioms  is  frankly  psychological, 
and  describes  how  the  mind  may  be  conceived  actually 
to  come  by  them.  Its  psychology  is  doubtless  mistaken, 
and  its  recourse  to  psychology  to  settle  the  problem  of 
knowledge  may  often  be  crudely  worded,  but  it  propounds 
a  definite  method  of  answering  a  real  question.  And  we 
are  at  least  free  from  the  perplexities  which  arise  in 
apriorism  when  an  argument  is  conducted  on  two  planes  at 
once,  the  psychological  and  the  epistemological  (logical), 
and  the  relations  of  the  two  are  left  carefully  undefined. 

Secondly,  it  should  be  noted  that  empiricist  psychology 
is  at  bottom  quite  as  much  infected  with  intellectualism 
as  that  of  the  apriorists.  It  conceives,  that  is,  the 
experience  which  yields  the  elements  of  our  mental 
structure  as  cognitive  ('  impressions,'  '  ideas,"  etc.)  ;  it 
does  not  place  the  central  function  of  mental  life  in 
volitional  striving  and  selective  attention.  Now  intel- 
lectualism, though  it  may  lend  itself  to  many  descriptive 
purposes  in  psychology  and  hence  will  probably  never 
wholly  disappear,  is  ultimately  a  misdescription  of  mental 
life  even  as  psychology,  while  it  is  essentially  incapable 
of  connecting  itself  with  the  wider  biological  context,  in 
which  the  organism  is  conceived  as  reacting  on  its 
environment,  or  with  the  higher  ethical  plane,  on  which 
it  is  conceived  as  a  responsible  person. 

I  pass  to  the  graver  counts  of  the  indictment.  Em- 
piricism conceived  a  purely  passive  mind  as  being  moulded 
by  an  already  made  external  world  into  correspondence 
with  itself  in  the  course  of  a  process  of  experience  which 
overcame  whatever  native  refractoriness  the  mind  pos- 
sessed.1 Hence  we  come  by  our  belief  that  every  event 
has  a  cause  in  consequence  of  the  fact  that  there  are 
causes  in  nature,  and  that  this  eventually  impresses  itself 


66  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  „ 

upon  us  ;  two  and  two  make  four,  because  there  are  units 
which  behave  so,  and  we  must  count  them  thus  and  not 
otherwise,  though  in  another  world,  as  Mill  consistently 
observed,  they  might  insist  on  making  five,  and  force 
upon  us  a  new  arithmetic.  So  also  it  is  because  nature  is 
uniform  that  an  unbroken  series  of  inductions  per  ennmera- 
tionem  simplicem  hammers  into  us  the  principle  of  the 
'  uniformity  of  nature.' 

To  all  this  the  fatal  objection  holds  that  these  prin- 
ciples cannot  be  extracted  from  experience  because  they 
must  already  be  possessed  before  experience  can  confirm 
them.  Hume's  simple  discovery,  that  the  connection  of 
events  which  all  assume  is  never  a  fact  of  observation,  is 
as  awkward  for  empiricism  as  for  apriorism.  Unless, 
therefore,  we  look  upon  the  succession  of  events  as 
possibly  regular,  it  can  yield  no  evidence  of  a  principle 
of  regularity ;  until  we  count  them,  things  are  not 
numbered,  until  we  look  for  order,  order  does  not 
appear.  In  the  case  of  the  uniformity  of  nature  Mill 
indeed  practically  concedes  this  ;  he  admits  (Logic,  bk.  iii. 
ch.  iii.  §  2,  and  ch.  vii.  §  i)  that  "nature  not  only  is 
uniform,  but  is  also  infinitely  various,"  that  some  pheno- 
mena "  seem  altogether  capricious,"  and  that  "  the  order 
of  nature  as  perceived  at  a  first  glance  presents  at  every 
instant  a  chaos  followed  by  another  chaos."  Now  if  this 
is  still  true  of  the  impression  produced  on  us  by  nature, 
whenever  we  assume  the  receptive  attitude  of  a  disinterested 
observer,  how  much  more  of  a  chaos  must  nature  have 
appeared  to  the  primitive  intelligence  which  had  yet  to 
lay  down  the  fundamental  principles  of  cosmic  order  ?  * 

The  truth  is  that  the  whole  empiricist  account  of  the 
derivation  of  axioms  is  not  psychological  history  experi- 
enced by  the  primitive  mind  :  like  so  much  '  inductive 
logic  '  it  is  at  best  an  ex  post  facto  reinterpretation  (for 
logical  purposes)  of  such  experience  by  a  reflecting  mind 
which  has  already  grasped,  and  long  used,  the  principles 

1  There  is  of  course  nmple  evidence  that  this  was  actually  felt  to  be  the  case. 
Primitive  animism  is  (inter  alia)  an  explanation  of  the  material  chaos  of  experi- 
ence by  a  corresponding  spiritual  chaos,  conceived  as  rather  more  manageable. 


it  AXIOMS  AS  POSTULATES  67 

of  cosmic  order.  To  the  primitive  mind  such  principles 
can  at  most  be  suggested  by  the  regularity  of  phenomena 
like,  e.g.,  the  alternation  of  day  and  night,  or  of  organic 
habits  (breathing,  heartbeat,  hunger,  etc.)  already  acquired 
before  reflection  begins  ;  but  if  mere  experience  were  the 
source  of  axioms,  such  suggestions  of  regularity  would 
necessarily  have  their  effect  effaced  by  the  preponder- 
antly chaotic  character  of  the  bulk  of  experience,  and 
would  be  swept  away  by  a  cataract  of  '  lawless ' 
impressions. 

Again  it  is  incumbent  on  us  to  note  the  difficulty  of 
generalising  the  empiricist  derivation  of  Axioms  :  though 
Empiricism  is  over  2000  years  old,  it  has  never  been 
completely  carried  out,  and  few  indeed  would  be  found  to 
envy  the  empiricist  the  task,  e.g.  of  adequately  deriving 
the  Principle  of  Identity. 

And  lastly,  it  affords  just  ground  for  complaint  that 
empiricism  as  it  stands,  does  not  really  satisfy  the  desire 
the  appeal  to  which  constituted  its  chief  charm.  It  does 
not  really  exhibit  the  derivation  of  the  axioms  in  a 
process  of  experience.  It  asserts  indeed  that  such  a 
derivation  occurred.  But  it  assigns  to  it  a  date  in  a 
so  remotely  prehistoric  and  prelogical  age  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  observe  the  details  of  the  process.  And  in 
any  case  the  process  is  complete.  Thus,  according  to 
Mill,  the  romance  of  the  axioms  is  past  before  real 
thinking  and  scientific  induction  begin  :  association  has 
engendered  them,  but  that  does  not  prevent  them  from 
being  final  constituents  of  the  present  intellectual  order; 
once  established  "  in  the  dim  red  dawn  of  man,"  they 
are  exempt  from  further  vicissitudes,  and  undergo  no 
selection  or  real  confirmation  in  the  development  of  our 
intelligence.  Thus  they  lay  claim  to  the  same  vicious 
finality  as  their  rivals  the  a  priori  structures  of  the  mind  : 
neither  the  one  nor  the  other  leaves  room  for  a  real 
growth  in  the  intrinsic  powers  of  the  mind. 


68  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  n 

III 

§  10.  But  to  castigate  empiricism  is  to  flog  a  dead 
horse  ;  to  go  on  an  expedition  against  apriorism  is  to 
plunge  into  an  enchanted  forest  in  which  it  is  easy  to 
miss  the  truth  by  reason  of  the  multitude  of  "  universal 
and  necessary  truths  "  which  bar  one's  way. 

At  first,  indeed,  nothing  seems  easier  and  more  obvious 
than  the  considerations  upon  which  apriorism  is  based. 
If  there  are  certain  truths  which  are  necessary  to  all 
knowing,  which  are  implied  in  the  existence  of  every 
act  of  knowledge,  if  these  truths  cannot  be  derived  from 
experience  because  they  are  presupposed  by  all  experi- 
ence, if,  as  we  said,  we  must  be  in  possession  of  them 
before  experience  can  confirm  them,  then  what  can  we 
do  but  call  them  a  priori  and  suppose  that  they  reveal 
the  ultimate  self-evident  structure  of  the  mind,  which 
we  must  recognise,  but  which  it  would  argue  impiety  to 
question  and  fatuity  to  derive  ? 

Nevertheless  I  propose  to  show  that  beneath  the  thin 
crust  of  this  self-evidence  there  lie  concealed  unsuspected 
depths  of  iniquity,  that  the  clearness  of  the  doctrine  is 
superficial  and  gives  way  to  deepening  obscurity  the 
farther  it  is  explored,  that  in  every  one  of  the  specious 
and  familiar  phrases,  which  apriorists  are  wont  to  fling 
about  as  the  final  deliverances  of  epistemological  wisdom, 
there  lurk  indescribable  monsters  of  ambiguity.  Nay, 
my  criticism  will  culminate  in  a  demonstration  that 
the  whole  conception  of  an  independent  and  autonomous 
theory  of  knowledge  is  afflicted  with  an  ineradicable 
and  incurable  confusion  of  thought,  the  clearing  up  of 
which  demolishes  the  locus  standi  of  the  whole  apriorist 
position. 

Let  us  note  then  in  the  first  place  that  as  an  inference 
from  the  break-down  of  the  old  empiricism  apriorism  is 
devoid  of  cogency.  It  docs  not  follow  that  because  the 
'  necessary  '  truths  are  presupposed  in  all  experience  they 
arc,  in  the  technical  sense,  a  priori.  We  must  indeed 
be  possessed  of  them  to  organise  our  experience,  but  we 


ii  AXIOMS   AS  POSTULATES  69 

need  not  be  possessed  of  them  in  the  manner  asserted. 
It  suffices  that  we  should  hold  them  experimentally,  as 
principles  which  we  need  practically  and  would  like  to 
be  true,  to  which  therefore  we  propose  to  give  a  trial, 
without  our  adoring  them  as  ultimate  and  underivable 
facts  of  our  mental  structure.  In  other  words  they  may 
be  prior  to  experience  as  postulates) 

§11.  Similarly  the  method  of  postulates  is  capable  of 
supplying  an  alternative  explanation  of  what,  since  Kant, 
have  been  esteemed  two  infallible  marks  of  a  genuine  a 
priori  truth,  viz.  its  universality  and  necessity.  It  is 
not  enough  merely  to  contend  that  these  truths  cannot 
come  from  experience,  because  experience  can  only  give 
fact  and  not  necessity  (or  at  least  not  an  objective 
necessity),  and  because  it  can  never  guarantee  an  absolute 
universality  which  applies  to  the  future  as  well  as  to 
the  present  and  past.  For  a  postulate  possesses  both 
these  valuable  characteristics  by  as  good  a  right  as  an  a 
priori  truth,  and  is  not  afflicted  with  the  impotence  that 
besets  a  mere  record  of  past  experience. 

Its  universality  follows  from  its  very  nature  as  a 
postulate.  If  we  make  a  demand  that  a  certain  principle 
shall  hold,  we  naturally  extend  our  demand  to  all  cases 
without  distinction  of  time,  past,  present,  and  to  come. 
The  shrinking  modesty  which  clings  to  the  support  of 
precedent  is  out  of  place  in  a  postulate.  A  truth  which 
we  assume  because  we  want  it  may  as  well  be  assumed 
as  often  as  we  want  it  and  for  all  cases  in  which  it  may 
be  needed.  We  can  make  it  therefore  as  universal  as 
we  please,  and  usually  we  have  no  motive  for  not 
making  it  absolutely  universal.-  Nor  is  the  enormity 

1  To  meet   the  obvious  criticism  that  most  people  are  quite  unaware  that  they 
postulate  in  knowing,  it  may  he  well  to  add  that  the  postulating,  lik>'  the  '  exjxiri- 
ay   proceed    with    little    or    no    consciousness   of   its   nature.      Indeed. 
sely   the    reavm    why   the   voluntari>t   and    postulatory   character   of 


mentmt 


this 


is  a  mere  i^ 
-  Someti 
purpose   tur 


novelty  in   |  hilosophy.      The  philosophers  who   indignantly   reject   it   arL;ne  that 
aware  of  postulating,    and  <'»xr'  there  is  no  MIC 


a/ii>  clcnchi,  and  does  not  prove  that  they  are  not  deluded. 
;,    it    is    true,    a    principle    which    is    assumed    as    useful   for    one 
is  out   later   on  to  conflict   with   another.      The  .scientific   postulate  of 


>m    are   a   good 
lute  universality 


70  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  n 

of  a  postulate  lessened,  or  atoned  for,  by  self-denying 
economy  in  the  use  of  it.  A  postulate  is  none  the  less 
a  postulate  because  it  is  a  little  one,  and  if  in  making 
it  we  sin,  we  may  as  well  sin  boldly.1 

Similarly  the  '  necessity '  of  a  postulate  is  simply  an 
indication  of  our  need.  We  want  it  and  so  must  have  it, 
as  a  means  to  our  ends.  Thus  its  necessity  is  that  of 
intelligent  purposive  volition,  not  of  psychical  (and  still 
less  of  physical)  mechanism.2  The  inability  to  think 

of  one  or  both  of  the  conflicting  principles.  But  the  better  way  of  obviating  the 
conflict  is  to  emphasise  the  fact  that  each  principle  is  relative  to  the  purpose  for 
which  it  was  assumed,  and  that  consequently,  on  their  respective  planes  and  from 
their  several  points  of  view,  both  principles  may  be  universally  valid,  though  one 
or  the  other,  or  both,  must  eventually  be  subjected  to  reinterpretation. 

1  It  is  a  great  satisfaction  to  me  to  find  myself  on  this  point  in  complete  agree- 
ment with  Dr.  Hodder  (The  Adversaries  of  the  Sceptic,  p.  14)  whose  merciless 
castigation  of  the  half-hearted  postulatings  of  some  modern  logicians,  can, 
to  my  mind,  be  met  only  by  an  open  avowal  of  the  fundamental  part  played  by 
postulation  in  the  constitution  of  all  knowledge  (including  Dr.  Hodder's  scepticism). 

-  I  am  of  course  painfully  aware  that  the  term  necessity  is  exceedingly 
equivocal.  At  first  sight  it  seems  as  though  we  could  distinguish — 

1.  'Absolute'     and     intrinsic     necessity    sui     (et    optimi)    juris    (Aristotle's 
avayxailov  ciTrXws   Ka.1   irpJrrus),    of  which   the    '  necessity '   of  a  priori  truths  is 
commonly  reputed  to  be  an  illustrious  example. 

2.  The    conditional    necessity    of  a    logical    train    of   thought,    in   which   the 
conclusion  follows  '  necessarily '  from  its  premisses. 

3.  The  necessity  of  the   '  necessary  conditions '  under  which  all  actions  take 
place.      This  influence  of  the  given  material  is  Aristotle's  ov  OVK  dvev. 

4.  The  necessity  of  means  to  ends  (Aristotle's  uic  OVK  &i>(v  rb  d.ya96v),  which 
renders  the  '  necessary'  ultimately  the  '  needful.' 

5.  The     psychical     feeling    of     '  having     to '     or     '  compulsion '     (Aristotle's 
avayKaiov  filq.). 

But  in  reality  the  last  two  alone  of  these  senses  are  primary  and  descriptive  of 
ultimate  facts  about  our  mental  constitution,  from  which  the  others  may  be 
derived.  The  feeling  of  necessity  (No.  5)  may  be  evoked  by  a  variety  of 
circumstances,  by  physical  constraint,  by  attempts  to  deny  facts  of  perception,  or 
to  interrupt  a  train  of  thought  which  coheres,  either  logically,  or  psychologically 
(for  all  minds,  or  for  an  individual's  mind).  It  arises  wherever  a  volition  is 
thwarted,  and  not  until  this  occurs  ;  hence  the  necessity  alike  of  fact  and  of 
reasoning  appears  to  be  'implicit.'  The  truth,  however,  is  that  factual  data 
and  logical  reasonings  are  not  '  necessary '  in  themselves  ;  their  '  necessity '  is 
only  aroused  in  consciousness  when  the  will  needs  to  affirm  them  against 
resistance  in  the  pursuit  of  its  ends.  That  '-2  and  2  must  be.  4'  only  marks  the 
rejection  of  some  other  result  :  if  we  desire  to  adhere  to  our  system  of 
arithmetical  assumptions  and  are  determined  to  go  on  counting,  we  cannot  be 
called  upon  to  add  2  and  2  in  any  other  way.  Hut  behind  the  'can't'  there 
always  lurks  a  'won't'  :  the  mind  cannot  stultify  itself,  because  it  will  not 
renounce  the  conceptions  it  needs  to  order  its  experiences.  The  feeling  of 
necessity,  therefore,  is  at  bottom  an  emotional  accompaniment  of  the  purposive 
search  for  the  means  to  realise  our  ends  (sense  4).  And  inasmuch  as  the 
pursuit  of  means  is  unmeaning  except  in  beings  working  under  limitations 
in  their  choice  of  means,  which  means  are  themselves  extracted  from  the 
resisting  material  (I"'\T;),  the  'necessity'  of  the  material  conditions  (sense  3) 
comes  to  l>e  bound  up  with  and  included  under  this  (4th)  head. 

As  for  '  absolute  necessity '  (sense    i)   it  is  altogether  a  misnomer,  involving  a 


n  AXIOMS  AS  POSTULATES  71 

them  otherwise,  which  is  supposed  to  distinguish  necessary 
truths,  is  at  bottom  a  refusal  to  do  so,  a  refusal  to  strip 
oneself  of  useful  means  of  harmonising  one's  experience 
at  the  summons  of  a  casual  doubt.  To  argue,  then,  from 
the  universality  and  necessity  of  our  axioms  to  their 
a  priori  origin  is  a  non  sequitur  which  should  not  be 
allowed  to  pass  unchallenged,  even  if  there  were  no 
alternative  theory  in  the  field. 

§  12.  Let  us  consider  next  the  possible  meanings 
of  the  phrase  '  a  condition  of  all  possible  experience.' 
When  an  a  priori  truth  is  so  denominated,  what  is  the 
precise  meaning  attached  to  '  condition  '  ?  Does  it  mean 
that  without  which  experience  cannot  be,  or  cannot  be 
thought,  or  cannot  be  thought  in  an  cestltetically  pleasing  or 
ethically  satisfactory  manner  1  Evidently  we  ought  to 
distinguish  between  a  truth  which  is  operative  as  a 
psychical  antecedent  fact  causing  the  subsequent 
experience  and  a  logical  factor  which  is  detected  in  that 
experience  by  subsequent  reflection,  but  need  not  be 
actually  present  in  consciousness  at  the  time  of 
experiencing,  and  so  cannot  be  called  a  psychical  fact. 
In  the  latter  case  the  '  condition  of  the  possibility  of 
experience '  is  not  anything  actually  necessary  to  the 
experience,  but  rather  necessary  to  its  ex  post  facto 
reconstruction  which  ministers  to  our  desire  for  the  logical 
ideal  of  an  intelligible  system  of  experience. 

And  of  course  the  answer  to  the  question — what  are 
the  conditions  of  thinking  such  a  logical  system  ? — will 
depend  on  the  mode  of  logical  analysis  we  may  choose  to 
adopt :  hence  the  burden  of  proof  will  rest  with  the 
advocates  of  any  particular  form  of  apriorism  that  their 
account  is  the  only  one  possible. 

All     these    considerations     may    be    urged    with    still 

contradiction  in  adjectis  :  necessity  is  always  dependence,  and  the  factual  only 
becomes  'necessary'  by  having  a  ground  assigned  to  it,  i.e.  by  sacrificing 
its  independence  and  becoming  hypothetical.  Hut  the  hypothetical  necessity  of 
thought  (sense  2),  into  which  it  is  thus  absorbed,  is  itself  reducible  to  a  means  : 
Our  coherent  systems  of  '  necessary  connection  '  can  (and  will)  be  shown  to  l»e 
but  means  for  the  realisation  of  our  purposes  in  thinking,  and  apart  from  these 
possess  no  necessity.  No  one  need  add  2  and  2  as  4  unl'-ss  he  needs  to  add,  i.e. 
wills  to  add  them,  because  he  needs  arithmetic. 


72  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  u 

greater  force  against  versions  of  the  a  priori  conditions  of 
experience  which  reduce  themselves  to  demands  (it  is 
true  for  the  most  part  semi-conscious  and  unavowed) 
that  the  cosmos  shall  conform  to  various  aesthetical  and 
ethical  ideals  :  such  demands  may  be  entirely  legitimate 
in  their  way,  and  I  myself  would  be  the  last  to  think  the 
worse  of  any  philosopher  for  showing  susceptibility  to 
ethical  and  aesthetical  ideals,  and  holding  that  their 
realisation  also  is  included  in  the  conditions  of  a  thoroughly 
rational  experience.  But  should  they  not  be  avowed  as 
such  ?  and  is  it  not  entirely  improper  to  mask  them  under 
the  ambiguity  of  '  the  conditions  of  experience  '  ?  There 
remains  then  only  the  first  interpretation,  which  takes  the 
'  condition  '  to  be  an  actual  psychical  fact,  and  so  decides 
in  one  way  the  very  debatable  question  which  must  next 
engage  our  attention. 

§13.  What  does  a  priori  mean?  When  we  speak 
of  '  the  a  priori  principles  implied  in  the  existence  of 
all  knowledge,'  do  we  mean  implied  logically  or  psycho- 
logically ?  Are  they,  that  is,  the  products  of  a  logical 
analysis  or  psychical  facts  ?  Is  the  '  priority '  asserted 
priority  in  time  (psychical  fact)  or  priority  in  idea  (logical 
order)  ?  Or,  horribile  dictu,  can  it  be  that  the  a  priori, 
as  it  is  used,  is  a  little  of  both,  or  each  in  turn,  and  that 
the  whole  apriorist  account  of  our  axioms  rests  on  this 
fundamental  confusion  ? 

Of  course  it  would  be  very  pleasant  if  we  could 
answer  this  question  by  an  appeal  to  authority,  if  we 
could  find,  for  choice  in  Kant,  or,  if  not,  in  some  of 
his  followers  and  interpreters,  an  unambiguous  and 
authoritative  settlement  of  this  question.  But  unfortu- 
nately Kant's  own  utterances  are  so  obscure,  ambiguous, 
and  inconsistent,  and  his  followers  are  in  such  disagreement, 
that  this  short  and  easy  way  is  barred,  and  that  we  shall 
have  to  adopt  the  longer,  and  perhaps  more  salutary, 
method  of  arguing  out  the  logical  possibilities  of  each 
interpretation. 

§  14.  I  shall,  accordingly,  begin  by  considering  the 
interpretation  of  the  a  priori  as  a  term  in  a  logical 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  73 

analysis,  as  it  seems  on  the  whole  to  be  that  best 
supported  and  most  supportable. 

If  \ve  take  the  a  priori  as  the  outcome  of  a  logical 
inquiry,  as  the  product  of  a  logical  analysis  describing 
how  the  formation  of  knowledge  out  of  its  constituent 
factors  is  to  be  conceived,  if  the  world  is  to  be  thinkable 
(i.e.  to  satisfy  our  logical  ideals),  then  the  first  point  of 
which  we  shall  require  an  explanation  is  how  zve  come 
by  these  factors.  In  the  Kantian  analysis  knowledge 
is  said  to  arise  out  of  the  union  of  heterogeneous 
elements,  Sensation  and  Thought,  the  former  supplying 
the  Matter,  the  latter  the  Form.  But  what  authenticates 
Kant's  fundamental  antithesis  of  Matter  and  Form, 
Sensation  and  Thought,  so  that  it  should  be  imperative 
on  every  one  to  set  out  from  it  in  his  analysis  of  the 
nature  of  knowledge  ?  Why  are  we  not  to  be  at  liberty 
to  conduct  our  analysis  in  whatever  way  and  by  whatever 
principles  appear  to  us  most  suitable  ?  Why  should  we 
be  tied  down  to  Kant's  factors  ?  Has  not  Mr.  Shadworth 
Hodgson  recently  shown  that  it  is  possible  to  construct 
a  logical  analysis  of  knowledge  as  elaborate  and  careful 
as  Kant's  (though  perhaps  just  as  unsound  ultimately) 
without  having  recourse  to  a  use  of  a  priori  principles  ? 
Or  better  still,  should  we  not  do  well  to  go  back  to 
Aristotle  and  find  in  his  antithesis  of  mediate  and 
immediate,  discursive  and  imuitive,  the  basis  of  an 
analysis  quite  as  legitimate  in  theory  and  far  more 
fertile  in  practice?  Is  it  not  in  short  an  unavoidable 
methodological  defect  of  any  '  epistemological '  argument 
that  it  must  rest  on  an  arbitrary  selection  of  fundamental 
assumptions  ? 

So  far  as  I  can  see,  the  exclusive  claims  of  the 
Kantian  analysis  could  be  defended  only  in  two  ways. 
It  might  be  alleged  that  the  recognition  of  its  truth  was 
itself  an  a  priori  necessity  of  thought.  Or  it  might  be 
contended  that  its  correctness  was  guaranteed  by  the 
manner  of  its  working,  by  our  finding  that,  as  a  matter  of 
subsequent  experience,  it  <//</ enable  us  to  account  rationally 
for  all  the  observed  characteristics  of  our  knowledge. 


74  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  „ 

But  would  not  the  first  defence  be  exposed  to  the 
crushing  retort  that  it  begged  the  question,  and  was 
nothing  more  than  a  circular  argument  which  tried  to 
make  the  unsupported  allegation  of  a  necessity  of  thought 
into  the  logical  ground  of  that  allegation  ? 

The  second  defence  on  the  other  hand  seems 
obnoxious  to  a  double  objection.  In  the  first  place  has 
it  not  a  pronounced  empiricist  trend,  and  is  it  consonant 
with  the  dignity  of  apriorism  to  introduce  a  sort  of 
transcendental  '  payment  by  results '  into  the  estimation 
of  theoretical  philosophemes  ?  And  secondly,  if  we 
answer  thus,  it  will  be  necessary,  but  not  easy,  to  show 
that  de  facto  the  Kantian  epistemology  gives  a  complete 
and  satisfactory  answer  to  the  whole  problem.  And  I 
hardly  anticipate  that  the  distinguished  philosophers  who 
have  devoted  their  lives  to  proving  the  necessity  of  going 
beyond  Kant  to  Fichte,  or  Hegel,  or  Herbart,  or 
Schopenhauer,  because  of  the  glaring  defects  they  have 
found  in  Kant's  system,  will  find  it  to  their  taste  so  to 
defend  the  Kantian  position,  even  though  it  has  supplied 
them  with  the  common  foundation  of  their  several  systems. 
We  must  either  deny,  therefore,  that  the  truth  of  the 
Kantian  analysis  of  knowledge  is  vouched  for  by  its 
self-evident  adequacy,  by  the  pellucid  cogency  of  its 
constructions,  or  assert  that  the  whole  procession  of 
philosophers  that  has  started  from  Kant  has  gone 
hopelessly  astray. 

But  after  all  it  is  not  we  who  are  concerned  to  find 
our  way  past  the  uninviting  horns  of  this  dilemma  ; 
whether  the  Kantian  analysis  of  knowledge  is  perfect  and 
his  followers  have  erred  in  amending  it,  or  whether  it  is 
fundamentally  wrong  and  his  followers  have  erred  in  con- 
tinuing it,  the  point  which  has  now  aroused  our  curiosity 
is  what  guarantees  it  offers  for  the  correctness  of  its 
presuppositions.  Let  us  turn,  therefore,  to  the  history  of 
philosophy  and  inquire  whence  as  a  matter  of  fact  Kant 
derived  the  presuppositions  of  his  analysis. 

£  i  5.  I  greatly  fear  the  answer  will  be  shocking. 
Kant's  whole  construction  seems  to  be  based  on  psychology, 


ii  AXIOMS  AS  POSTULATES  75 

nay  on  the  psychology  of  the  period  !  How  can  this  be 
reconciled  with  the  assiduity  with  which  the  dominant 
school  of  Kant-Pharisees  has  preached  that  epistemology 
and  psychology  have  nothing  to  do  with  each  other  and 
that  the  former  must  be  kept  quite  clear  from  contamina- 
tion with  the  latter  ?  After  it  has  been  so  long  and 
laboriously  instilled  into  us  that  subservience  to  psychology 
is  the  one  deadly  sin  which  the  good  epistemologist  must 
shun,  that  psychology  is  the  wicked  realm  of  Hume,  Mill, 
and  the  Devil,  have  we  not  a  right  to  be  shocked  when 
we  find  that  Kant  himself  has  distilled  his  elixir  vita  from 
this  broth  of  Hell  ?  Is  it  not  intolerable  then  to  force 
us  to  employ  psychological  assumptions  as  to  the  nature 
of  mind  ?  For  even  though  it  is  permitted  to  receive 
instruction  from  a  foe,  we  know  that  it  is  prudent  to 
dread  the  Danaans  even  when  they  are  bearing  gifts. 

And  yet  the  facts  are  hard  to  argue  away.  Is  not  the 
antithesis  between  the  'matter'  of  sensation  and  the  'form' 
of  thought  the  old  psychological  distinction  invented  by 
Plato?  Again  has  it  not  often  been  shown1  that  in  its 
conception  of  the  '  manifold  of  sensation '  the  Kantian 
system  presupposes  all  the  figments  of  an  empiricist 
psychology,  and  implies  the  very  psychological  atomism 
which  the  whole  subsequent  history  of  philosophy  has 
shown  to  be  unworkable,  and  which  the  simplest  intro- 
spection shows  to  be  untrue  ?  And  is  it  not  in  a  large 
measure  because  he  vainly  and  falsely  follows,  nay  out- 
does, Hume  in  assuming  a  wholly  unformed  and  unfounded 
V\T]  of  sensations,  which  not  all  the  a  priori  machinery 
made  in  Germany  can  ever  really  lick  into  shape,  that 
Kant's  epistemology  breaks  down  ? 

And  what  Kant  adds  to  this  psychological  mixture  of 
Platonic  dualism  and  Humian  atomism  is  a  no  less 
unoriginal  ingredient.  It  consists  simply  of  a  number 
of  faculties,  invented  ad  hoc,  upon  which  devolves  the  duty 
(which  we  arc  vainly  assured  they  are  capable  of  fulfilling) 
of  organising  the  formless  matter  with  which  they  are 
supplied.  But  docs  not  this  commit  the  Kantian  theory 

1   Most  recently  and  lucidly  in  Mr.   Hobhousr's  Thc^rv  of  Knent'ledge,  p.  42. 


76  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  n 

of  knowledge  to  another  psychological  fallacy,  the  effete 
and  futile  doctrine  of  faculties?  In  fine  what  answer 
should  we  be  able  to  make,  nay  how  should  we  disguise 
our  sympathy,  if  an  enfant  terrible  should  arise  and  declare 
that  so  far  from  being  uncontaminated  with  psychology 
Kantian  epistemology  was  in  reality  nothing  but  a 
misbegotten  cross  by  faculty  psychology  out  of  Humian 
atomism  ? 

I  have  never  been  able  to  discover  from  the  apriorists 
what  they  conceive  to  be  the  relation  of  logical  analysis 
to  psychological  fact,  i.e.  the  actual  process  of  experience, 
but  if,  as  experience  shows,  some  reference  to  the  latter 
occurs,  and  is  indeed  inevitable,  we  may  at  least  demand 
that  the  reference  should  be  made  clear  and  explicit.  And 
in  addition  it  may  fairly  be  demanded  that  if  a  theory 
of  knowledge  cannot  but  rest  on  presuppositions  as  to  the 
factual  nature  of  conscious  life,  recourse  should  be  had  to 
psychological  descriptions  of  the  best  and  most  modern 
type,  before  an  attempt  is  made  to  decide  what  super-  or 
extra-psychological  principles  are  '  implied  in  the  exist- 
ence of  knowledge.' 

§  16.  It  would  seem  then  that  the  attempt  to  construe 
the  a  priori  as  a  logical  analysis  independent  of  psycho- 
logical fact  is  not  practicable,  and  cannot  really  dispense 
with  an  appeal  to  psychological  assumptions  which  are 
arbitrary  and  exploded.  But  the  difficulties  of  this  theory 
of  the  a  priori  by  no  means  end  here.  Supposing 
even  that  somehow,  aided,  let  us  say,  by  some  spiritual 
influx  from  a  noiimenal  world,  we  had  succeeded  in  con- 
structing a  complete  account  of  the  structure  of  knowledge 
which  satisfied  every  logical  requirement,  worked  perfectly, 
and  was  applicable  to  everything  that  could  be  called 
knowledge,  even  so  we  should  have  gained  an  a,\sthetical 
rather  than  logical  advantage.  Our  epistemology  would 
be  beautiful,  because  great  and  symmetrical,  but  would  it 
be  indisputably  true  ?  Could  we  not  conceive  some  other 
philosopher  gifted  with  an  equally  synoptic  imagination 
setting  himself  to  compete  with  our  lovely  construction, 
and  succeeding,  perhaps,  in  throwing  it  into  the  shade  of 


,i  AXIOMS   AS   POSTULATES  77 

oblivion  by  a  rival  structure  based  on  different  assumptions, 
built  up  by  different  connections  and  excelling  its  pre- 
decessors in  completeness,  simplicity,  and  aesthetic 
harmony  P1 

Theoretically  at  least  any  number  of  such  analyses  of 
knowledge  would  seem  to  be  possible  ;  for  they  have  only 
to  construct  imaginary  logical  systems,  to  describe  how 
knowledge  way  be  conceived  to  be  put  together,  without 
restriction  as  to  the  choice  of  principles  assumed  and 
without  reference  to  what  actually  occurs  in  reruni  natnra. 
It  would  need  therefore  the  decree  of  some  absolute  and 
infallible  despot  of  the  intelligible  world  to  secure  for 
whatever  a  priori  account  was  preferred — on  account  of  its 
simplicity  or  aesthetic  completeness  or  practical  convenience 
—a  monopoly  of  epistemological  explanation. 

§  1 7.  However,  even  this  may  be  conceded.  I  am  in 
a  yielding  mood  and  not  disposed  to  cavil  or  to  stick  at 
trifles,  and  so  will  not  contest  the  right  divine  of  Kant 
and  his  dynasty — he  has  too  great  a  bodyguard  of 
philosophy  professors. 

I  proceed  only  to  point  out  a  consequence  of  the 
attempt  to  construe  the  a  priori  logically  without  reference 
to  psychical  fact.  It  follows  that  its  priority  is  not  in 
time.  For  the  whole  matter  is  one  of  logical  analysis. 
The  actual  knowledge,  which  the  epistemologist  professes 
to  analyse,  is  then  the  real  fact,  and  prior  to  the  analysis 
which  professes  to  explain  it.  It  is  the  actual  presupposi- 
tion of  the  analysis  which  distinguishes  in  it  an  a  priori 
and  an  a  posteriori  element.  Thus  in  actual  fact  the 
a  priori  and  a  posteriori  elements  in  knowledge  are  co- 
eternal  and  co-indispensable,  even  though  not  esteemed 
co-equal.  The  priority  therefore  of  the  a  priori  is  solely 
an  honorific  priority  in  dignity.  A  priori  and  a  posteriori 
are  merely  eulogistic  and  dyslogistic  appellations,  which 
we  arc  pleased  to  bestow  upon  factors  which  we  arc 
pleased  to  distinguish  in  one  and  the  same  act  of  know- 
ledge. In  the  concrete  reality  they  are  fused  together  ; 
there  is  no  form  without  matter  and  no  matter  without 

1   That  this  actually  occurs  has  been  shown  above  i$  14). 


78  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER 

form — (rvve^ev^dat  pev  yap  ravra  (fraiverat  KOI 
ov  Be^€(T0at,.1 

Now  if  this  be  the  case,  I  cannot  for  the  life  of  me  see 
why  such  inordinate  importance  should  be  attached  to  the 
distinction  of  a  priori  and  a  posteriori,  nay  to  the  whole 
epistemological  theory,  nor  why  the  naming  and  pre- 
cedence of  such  abstractions  should  be  accounted  essentials 
of  philosophic  salvation.  What  now  hinders  us  from 
inferring  from  the  course  of  the  argument  that  the 
procedure  and  terminology  of  our  epistemological  analysis 
is  arbitrary  and  indifferent,  and  that  the  real  test  of  truth 
comes,  not  from  any  distinctions  we  assume  beforehand, 
but  a  posteriori  and  empirically  from  the  manner  of  its 
working  ? 

§  1 8.  As  far  as  the  Kantian  analysis  of  knowledge  is 
concerned,  the  issue  can  be  narrowed  down  to  this 
question,  whether  it  works,  and  is  the  simplest  and  most 
convenient  analysis  that  can  be  devised.  If  such  a 
contention  on  its  behalf  can  be  substantiated,  let  it  be 
called  true,  in  the  only  sense  in  which  mortal  man  can 
intelligibly  speak  of  truth  ;  if  not,  let  it  be  finally  housed 
in  that  '  Museum  of  Curios '  which  Prof.  James  has  so 
delightfully  instituted  for  the  clumsy  devices  of  an 
antiquated  philosophy.2 

Now  this  is  a  question  which  I  could  not  presume  to 
answer  for  others  without  a  thorough  knowledge  of  their 
tastes  and  customs  of  thought  ;  but  personally  I  have 
long  felt  towards  the  Kantian  epistemology  not  much 
otherwise  than  Alphonso  the  Wise  felt  towards  the 
Ptolemaic  astronomy  when  he  realised  its  growing  com- 
plications ;  and  if  by  incantations  or  recantations  or 
decantations  I  could  induce  its  author  to  leave  the  society 
and  the  otium  cum  dignitate  of  the  Thing-in-itself,  I  would 
fain  relieve  my  feelings  by  apostrophising  him  as  follows  : — 

'  Oh  mighty  Master  of  both  Worlds  and  both  Reasons, 
Thinker  of  Noiimena,  and  Seer  of  Phenomena,  Schematiser 
of  Categories,  Contemplator  of  the  Pure  Forms  of  Intuition, 

1  Aristotle,  Eth.  Nich.  x.  4.   n. 
2  Philosophical  Conceptions  and  Practical  Results,  p.  24. 


ii  AXIOMS  AS  POSTULATES  79 

Unique  Synthesiser  of  Apperceptions,  Sustainer  of  all 
Antinomies,  all-pulverising  Annihilator  of  Theoretic  Gods 
and  Rational  Psychologies,  I  conjure  thee  by  these  or  by 
whatever  other  titles  thou  hast  earned  the  undying 
gratitude  of  countless  commentators,  couldst  thou  not 
have  constructed  the  theory  of  our  thinking  activity  more 
lucidly  and  more  simply  ?  ' 

§  19.  At  this  point  it  would  seem  to  be  time  for 
believers  in  the  a  priori  to  shift  their  ground  and  to  try 
another  version  of  its  meaning.  I  expect  to  be  told, 
and  in  no  measured  terms,  that  I  have  misinterpreted 
and  maligned  Kant,  and  blasphemed  against  the  sacred 
image  of  immutable  truth  which  he  has  set  up.  Epistemo- 
logical  analysis  is  not  the  arbitrary  pastime  of  an  idle 
imagination,  dvSexopevov  aXXoK  e^eii/  in  myriad  ways. 
A  priori  truths  are  facts  which  can  neither  be  nor  be 
conceived  otherwise,  and  without  which  no  other  know- 
ledge can  be  or  be  conceived. 

"  You  will  not  surely,"  I  shall  indignantly  be  asked, 
"  deny  that  you  think  by  the  principle  of  identity,  that 
you  predicate  the  categories  of  substance  and  causality, 
that  you  refer  your  experiences  to  a  synthetic  unity  of 
apperception,  that  you  behold  them  in  space  and  time  ? 
And  we  call  these  operations  a  priori,  to  indicate  that 
without  them  you  cannot  know  or  experience  anything 
at  all." 

Very  well,  then,  let  us  recognise  the  a  priori  truths  as 
facts.  If  it  is  on  this  condition  alone  that  I  may  use 
them,  I  will  gladly  grovel  in  the  dust  before  them  rather 
than  that  they  should  withdraw  the  light  of  their  counten- 
ance and  I  should  be  cast  into  outer  darkness.  Still  I 
cannot  but  hope  that  the  said  light  is  not  so  blinding 
that  I  cannot  behold  their  features.  Permit  me,  therefore, 
to  trace  them  and  to  bask  in  their  beauty. 

The  a  priori  axioms  are  facts — real,  solid,  observable, 
mental  facts — and  woe  betide  the  philosopher  that  collides 
with  them  !  In  one  word  they  are  psycliical  facts  of  the 
most  indubitable  kind. 

My   delight    at    having    found    something    tangible    at 


8o  F.  C.   S.  SCHILLER  n 

the  bottom  of  so  much  obscure  terminology  is  so  sincere 
that  I  have  not  the  heart  to  be  critical  about  their  psycho- 
logical credentials.  Let  me  waive,  therefore,  the  question, 
mooted  before,  whether  they  have  always  been  described 
with  psychological  accuracy,  and  by  the  best  psychological 
formulas.  I  waive  also  the  cognate  question  whether 
their  description  suffices  to  distinguish  them  unequivocally 
from  their  discredited  ancestors,  the  innate  ideas,  which 
since  Locke  we  have  all  been  taught  to  deny  with  our 
lips.  I  will  postpone  also  an  obvious  question  as  to 
what  is  now  to  prevent  the  theory  of  knowledge  from 
being  absorbed  in  psychology.  For  I  have  no  wish  to 
"  sycophantise "  against  an  argument  which  bids  fair  to 
become  intelligible. 

§  20.  But  of  course  I  cannot  close  my  eyes  to  the 
consideration  that  observable  psychical  facts  have  a  history. 
The  a  priori  axioms,  therefore,  may  be  contemplated 
historically^  and  psycJwgenetically ;  and  then,  perhaps,  the 
valet  within  me  whispers,  it  will  turn  out  that  they  were 
not  always  such  superhuman  heroines  as  they  now  appear, 
and  that  they  have  arrived  at  their  present  degree  of 
serene  exaltation  from  quite  simple  and  lowly  origins. 
Accordingly  I  shade  my  eyes,  thus,  and  scrutinise  their 
countenances,  so,  and  lo  !  I  begin  to  discriminate  !  They 
do  not  all  seem  to  be  of  an  age  or  of  equal  rank  ;  some, 
as  Plato  says,1  are  Trpea'/Beui  KOL  8vvd/j.ei  vTrepe^ovcrai. 
Others  seem  to  have  been  admitted  into  the  Pantheon 
in  historic  times,  while  yet  others  have  been  thrown 
into  the  background,  or  even  into  Tartaros.  Shade  of 
Plato !  is  not  even  the  supercelestial  World  of  Ideas 
exempt  from  change  ?  Nay  more,  their  manners  and 
bearing  are  not  uniform,  and  I  swear  by  Aphrodite, 
I  believe  some  are  rouged  and  powerless  to  hide  the 
ravages  of  age  ! 

To  carry  on  the  imagery  would  be  too  painful,  but 
I  must  adhere  to  its  meaning.  If  the  a  priori  axioms 
are  in  any  sense  psychical  facts,  or  contained  in  psychical 
facts,  each  of  them  has  a  theoretically  traceable  history, 


n  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  81 

and  in  many  cases  that  history  is  visibly  written  on  their 
faces.  They  are  complex  growths  which  constitute 
problems  for  the  philosophic  mind  ;  they  are  in  no  sense 
solutions  of  the  problem  of  knowledge,  or  of  any  other. 

Whoever  then  can  carry  their  analysis  farther,  either 
historically,  by  showing  how,  when,  and  why  they  arose, 
or  logically,  by  systematically  connecting  them  with  and 
deriving  them  from  the  other  constituents  of  our  nature, 
or  by  the  mixed  method  to  which  the  gaps  in  our  know- 
ledge will  probably  long  compel  us,  i.e.  by  supplementing 
and  colligating  actual  observation  by  hypothesis,  will 
have  deserved  well  of  philosophy,  even  though  he  will 
have  had  to  sacrifice  the  dogma  of  the  verbal  inspiration 
of  the  Kantian  Criticism. 

§  21.  Any  such  further  inquiry  into  axioms,  therefore, 
is  necessarily  preferable  to  any  view  which  is  content  to 
leave  them  plantees  la  as  insuperable,  indissoluble,  un- 
questionable, ultimate  facts  which  obstruct  the  advance  of 
science  by  their  unintelligibleness.  For  what  could  be 
more  disheartening  than  to  encounter  this  serried  array 
of  a  priori  '  necessities  of  thought '  entrenched  behind 
craftily  contrived  obstructions  of  technical  jargon,  and 
declining  to  yield  or  to  give  any  account  of  themselves  ? 

Can  we  indeed,  so  long  as  we  tolerate  their  pretensions, 
be  truly  said  to  have  explained  the  nature  of  knowledge 
at  all  ?  For  what  do  they  do  to  explain  it  ?  What  do 
they  do  beyond  vainly  duplicating,  as  parata  etSr],  the 
concrete  processes  of  actual  knowing  ?  At  best  they 
seem  nothing  but  the  capita  mortita  of  a  defunct  faculty 
psychology,  which  offers  us  only  a  tautological  SiW/zt?  in 
lieu  of  the  evepyeia  whereof  we  desired  an  explanation. 

I  have  experience  of  the  spatially  extended — forsooth, 
because  I  am  endowed  with  a  '  pure '  faculty  of  space 
perception  !  I  experience  succession — forsooth,  because  I 
have  the  '  pure '  form  of  empty  time !  I  refer  my 
experience  to  my  'self,'  and  the  operation  is  'explained  ' 
by  being  rebaptised  in  the  name  of  the  Synthetic  Unity 
of  Apperception  ! 

I  know  of  course  that  Kant  supposed  himself  to  have 

G 


82  F.  C.  S.   SCHILLER  „ 

guarded  against  this  interpretation  and  the  criticism  which 
it  provokes,  by  denying  that  the  'pure  intuition  '  of  Space 
or  Time  is  a  priori  only  in  the  sense  in  which,  e.g.  the 
colour  sense  is  prior  to  the  colour  perception.1  But  I 
should  dispute  his  right  to  do  this,  and  contend  that 
in  so  far  as  he  succeeded  in  establishing  a  difference,  it 
was  only  at  the  cost  of  making  the  '  pure  intuition ' 
prior  to  experience  in  the  evil  psychological  sense  of 
the  '  innate  idea.'  2 

§  22.  "But  is  not  this  whole  indictment  based  on  a 
refusal  to  recognise  the  axioms  as  ultimate  ?  And  what 
do  you  hope  to  gain  thereby  ?  For  surely  you  do  not 
mean  to  refuse  to  recognise  anything  as  ultimate  ?  And 
what  more  deserving  objects  could  you  find  for  such 
recognition  than  the  body  of  necessary  truths  ?  " 

Certainly  I  do  not  in  the  least  mean  to  commit  myself 
to  a  denial  of  anything  ultimate.  Every  inquiry  must 
stop,  as  it  must  begin,  somewhere.  Only  I  am  disposed 
to  deny  that  we  should  stop  with  the  '  necessary  truths.' 
And  I  urge  that  if  by  one  method  a  fact  (under  investiga- 
tion in  pari  materia,  of  course)  appears  ultimate,  which 
by  another  is  easily  susceptible  of  further  analysis,  then 
the  latter  method  is  logically  superior.  And  I  contend 
also  that  the  so-called  a  priori  truths  do  not  look  ultimate, 
and  that  it  is  highly  disadvantageous  to  treat  them  as 
such  :  I  am  preparing  to  contend  that  upon  proper 
investigation  they  turn  out  to  be  certainly  derivative,  and 
that  a  knowledge  of  their  ancestry  will  only  increase  the 
regard  and  affection  we  all  feel  for  them. 

It  appears,  then,  that  if  a  priori  truth  be  taken  as 
psychical  fact,  it  is  arbitrary  to  treat  it  as  ultimate,  and 
that  we  have  every  motive  to  connect  it  with  the  rest 
of  our  mental  constitution.  We  have  thereby  completed 
the  proof  that  the  apriorist  account  of  our  axiomatic 

1    Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  §  3,  s.f, 

-  Kant  supports  an  erroneous  doctrine  by  downright  psychological  blunders. 
Thus  he  asserts  that  he  can  '  think  '  empty  Space  and  Time,  but  not  objects  out 
of  Space  and  Time.  If  we  resolve  the  ambiguity  of  '  think,'  it  will  appear  (a) 
that  both  the  objects  and  the  'pure  intuitions'  are  alike  conceivable,  and  (b]  that 
they  are  alike  iniinni^inable.  Hut  Kant  contrasts  the  unimaginableness  of  the 
objects  with  the  conce;vableness  of  the  intuitions  to  make  the  latter  .seem  'prior.' 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  83 

first    principles    is    invalid,    in   whichever  way  it    is    con- 
sistently taken. 

§23.  But  then  it  never  is  consistently  taken.  Neither 
in  Kant  nor  in  any  of  his  successors  is  either  interpretation 
of  the  a  priori  consistently  adhered  to.  When  objections 
are  raised  against  the  manifestly  fictitious  nature  of  its 
psychological  foundations,  all  connection  with  psychology 
is  indignantly  disavowed.  If,  on  the  strength  of  this 
disavowal,  the  whole  theory  of  knowledge  is  treated  as  a 
pretty  structure  which  need  comply  only  with  logical 
canons  of  formal  consistency,  the  actual  reality  and  de 
facto  use  of  the  axioms  is  thrust  down  our  throats. 

And  the  worst  of  it  is  that  this  duplicity  of  attitude  is 
unavoidable.  For  it  is  in  truth  essential  to  the  whole 
epistemological  point  of  view.  There  is  no  room  for  a 
separate  theory  of  knowledge  with  a  peculiar  standpoint, 
if  we  assign  to  psychology  and  logic  the  whole  field  that 
each  of  them  can  and  ought  to  occupy.1  In  the  so-called 
theory  of  knowledge  the  primary  problem  is  psychological  ; 
it  is  a  question  of  the  correctest  and  most  convenient  de- 
scription of  what  actually  occurs  in  acts  of  knowing,  i.e.  a 
question  of  psychological  fact.  To  logic  on  the  other  hand 
it  appertains  to  estimate  the  value  of  all  these  cognitive 
processes  :  all  questions  as  to  whether  the  judgments  that 
claim  truth  actually  attain  it,  as  to  how  cognitions  may 
be  rendered  consistent,  may  realise  the  purposes  which  we 
have  in  knowing,  may  contribute  to  the  ideals  we  set  before 
ourselves  in  knowing,  fall  into  the  province  of  the  science 
which  aims  at  systematising  our  cognitions  into  a  coherent 
body  of  truth.  Between  these  two  what  remains  for  epis- 
temology  to  do?  From  what  point  of  view,  and  with  what 
purpose  is  it  to  treat  knowledge,  if  both  the  facts  and  their 
valuation  are  already  otherwise  provided  for?  It  is  not 
a  normative  science  like  logic,  and  it  is  not  descriptive 
science  like  psychology.  And  the  '  critical '  question— 
how  do  iv e  know? — important  though  it  is  in  itself,  surely 


84  F.  C.   S.  SCHILLER  n 

does  not  suffice  to  found  a  science.  For  the  question 
cannot  be  answered  unless  it  is  asked  on  the  basis  of 
definite  facts  and  with  a  definite  aim  in  view.  And 
whenever  it  is  answered,  the  answer  will  always  be  found 
to  be  in  terms  either  of  psychology  or  of  logic. 

§24.  As  the  outcome  of  our  criticism  of  the  two 
current  theories  of  the  nature  of  our  axioms  we  have 
arrived  at  the  conclusion  that  neither  the  apriorist  nor 
the  empiricist  account  is  tenable.  Both  have  proved 
unsatisfactory ;  the  former  because  it  represented  the 
axioms  as  mere  brute  facts  of  our  mental  organisation 
(either  entirely  disconnected  or  connected  only  among 
themselves),  the  latter  as  the  fictitious  imprints  of  a 
psychologically  impossible  experience  on  a  purely  passive 
mind. 

At  bottom  the  failure  of  both  accounts  springs  from 
the  same  source.  Both  are  infected  with  an  intellectualism 
which  is  a  libel  on  our  nature,  and  leads  them  to  take 
too  narrow  a  view  of  its  endowment.  Because  of  this 
common  intellectualism  they  fail  to  realise  the  central  fact 
which  we  always  encounter  so  soon  as  we  abandon  the 
abstract  standpoints  of  the  lower  sciences  and  try  to 
conceive  our  relation  to  our  experience  as  a  whole,  the 
fact  that  the  living  organism  acts  as  a  whole.  Or  to  bring 
out  separately  the  aspects  of  this  central  fact  which 
empiricism  and  apriorism  severally  misinterpret,  we  may 
say  that  the  organism  is  active  and  the  organism  is  one. 

Empiricism,  with  its  fiction  of  the  tabula  rasa,  fails 
to  appreciate  the  first  aspect  ;  to  see  that,  even  in  its 
reactions  on  its  environment,  the  organism  is  active, 
reacting  in  a  mode  decided  by  its  own  nature  and  guided 
by  its  aspirations  towards  a  harmony  of  its  experience. 
Its  whole  attitude  is  one  of  volition  and  desire,  which  is 
ultimately  a  yearning  for  the  Apocalypse  of  some 
unearthly  ideal  of  harmonious  equilibration  in  its  whole 
experience,  and  for  the  attainment  of  this  end  the  whole 
intellectual  apparatus  is  a  means.1 

1   Of  course  this  has  not  wholly  escaped  the  notice  of  philosophers  even  in  former 
days,  and  so  we  may  remind  ourselves  of  Spinoza's  conatus  in  suo  essc  perscverarc, 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  85 

In  short,  the  irpwrov  -frev&os  of  the  old  empiricism 
is  to  have  failed  to  recognise  this  fact  of  living  activity 
and  its  bearing  on  the  growth  and  constitution  of 
the  mind. 

Again  the  organism  is  one  and  reacts  as  a  whole. 
This  is  what  apriorism  fails  to  appreciate.  In  the  fierce 
struggle  for  existence  we  need  all  our  forces,  and  require 
a  compact  control  of  all  our  resources  to  survive.  The 
organism,  therefore,  cannot  afford  to  support  a  dis- 
interested and  passionless  intelligence  within  it,  which 
hovers  unconcerned  above  the  bloodstained  battlefields 
of  progress,  or  even  sucks  a  ghoulish  and  parasitic 
sustenance  from  the  life-blood  of  practical  striving. 
®€Q)pia  must  not  be  separated  from  Trpa^i?,  but  related 
to  it  as  means  to  end  ;  thought  must  be  conceived  as 
an  outgrowth  of  action,  knowledge  of  life,  intelligence  of 
will,  while  the  brain  which  has  become  an  instrument  of 
intellectual  contemplation  must  be  regarded  as  the 
subtlest,  latest,  and  most  potent  organ  for  effecting 
adaptations  to  the  needs  of  life.1 

Thus  the  irpwrov  -v|re{)So?  of  apriorism  is  to  take  our 
intelligence  in  abstraction  from  its  biological  and  psycho- 
logical setting,  from  its  history,  from  its  aim,  and  from 
the  function  which  it  performs  in  the  economy  of  our 
nature.  It  perpetrates  a  ^capta-pos  between  knowing  and 


of  Schopenhauer's  Will-  to  -live,  nay  of  Herbart's  account  of  sensations  as 
self  -maintenances  of  the  soul.  At  the  present  day,  voluntarism  bids  fair  to 
prevail  over  intellectualisni,  having  obtained  the  support  of  men  like  James, 
Wund;  Ward,  Sigwart,  Stout,  I'aulsen,  Renouvier.  etc.  Since  this  was  written 
the  recently  published  remains  of  Nietzsche.  (  Willc  zur  Mac  lit,  iii.  i.  1901)  have 
made  it  manifest  that  he  also  conceived  our  axioms  as  postulates  transformed 
into  'truths'  bv  their  usefulness,  and  that  I  might  have  quoted  fnnn  him  some 
telling  phrases  to  this  effect. 

To  all  tlii.s  even  Mr.  I'.radley's  reiterated  asseverations  (Mind,  N.S.,  No.  41, 
pp.  7,  <),  etc.  )  that  he  "  cannot  accept  "  principles  which  lie  sees  to  be  subversive  of 
the  dogmatic  assumptions  of  his  whole  philosophy  hardly  seem  a  sufficient  counter- 
poise. 

1  Of  course  this  doctrine  does  not  involve  a  denial  of  the  existence  (though 
it  does  of  the  rationality)  of  a  'pure'  or  'disinterested'  love  of  knowledge  'for 


its  own  sake.'  All  our  functions  are  liable  t< 
tact,  there  may  also  occur  such  a  perversion  of  the  cog 
would  even  srem  to  show  that  it  may  pcr-i.-t  and  e 
course  of  evolution.  But  then  the  explanation  ] 
knowledge  is  not  nearly  so  useless  as  its  votaries  sup] 
which  are  capable  of  it  the  love  for  it  is  connected  \s 
which  are  both  useful  and  valuable. 


a  psychological 
live  instinct  ;  nay,  history 
n  lie  strengthened  in  the 
obably  is  that  '  useless  ' 
se,  and  that  in  the  minds 
th  other  mental  capacities 


86  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  n 

feeling  which   renders  both  impotent    and   their  de  facto 
union  unintelligible. 

But  when  we  try  to  grasp  experience  as  a  whole,  we 
must  set  ourselves  above  the  encumbering  abstractions 
of  a  psychological  classification  that  has  transgressed  the 
limits  of  its  validity.  By  conceiving  the  axioms  as 
essentially  postulates,  made  with  an  ultimately  practical 
end,  we  bridge  the  gap  that  has  been  artificially 
constructed  between  the  functions  of  our  nature,  and 
overcome  the  errors  of  intellectualism.  We  conceive  the 
axioms  as  arising  out  of  man's  needs  as  an  agent,  as 
prompted  by  his  desires,  as  affirmed  by  his  will,  in  a 
word,  as  nourished  and  sustained  by  his  emotional  and 
volitional  nature.1  It  is  manifest  that  we  thereby  knit 
together  the  various  factors  in  our  nature  in  a  far  closer 
and  more  intimate  union  than  had  previously  seemed 
possible.  Our  nature  is  one,  and  however  we  distinguish, 
we  must  not  be  beguiled  into  forgetting  this,  and 
substituting  a  part  for  the  whole.  And,  correspondingly, 
we  open  out  the  prospect  of  a  systematic  unification  of 
experience  of  a  far  completer  and  more  satisfactory 
character  than  can  be  dreamt  of  by  an  intellectualist  philo- 
sophy. For  just  as  the  unity  to  which  we  may  (and 
indeed  must)  now  aspire  is  no  longer  merely  that  of  the 
frigid  abstraction  called  the  '  pure '  intellect,  but  includes 

1  I  am  not  here  concerned  with  the  intra- psychological  questions  as  to  the 
number  and  nature  of  the  psychic  'elements,'  as  to  whether  special  volitional 
or  affective  processes  must  be  recognised  in  psychology.  For  the  question 
cannot  be  answered  until  it  has  been  settled  what  is  to  be  the  purpose  of  the 
psychological  description.  Like  all  conceptions,  the  meaning  and  validity  of 
those  of  psychology  are  relative  to  the  use  to  which  they  are  put,  and  in  the 
abstract  they  have  only  potential  meaning.  As  Dr.  Stout  well  puts  it  (p.  10), 
one  "cannot  be  right  or  wrong  without  reference  to  some  interest  or  purpose," 
and  before  bespeaking  their  readers'  attention  for  the  details  of  their  classifications;, 
psychologists  should  above  all  make  it  clear  n'hat  they  propose  to  d<>  -vith  them. 
N'ow  I  do  not  doubt  that  it  is  quite  possible,  and  for  certain  purposes  even  con- 
venient, to  devise  descriptions  in  purely  intellectual  terms,  which  entirely  dispense 
with  tin:  conceptions  of  volition,  of  agency,  and  even  of  feeling.  Only  of  course  it 
must  not  be  imagined  that  any  such  descriptions  are  final  and  sacrosanct.  They 
are  purely  methodological,  and  their  validity  extends  as  far  as  their  usefulness. 
And  the  question  arises  whether  they  can  be  used  for  a  purpose  like  that  which 
we  have  in  view.  If  not,  we  are  entitled  to  describe  differently.  For  it  cannot 
b"  too  soon  or  too  strongly  emphasised  that  there  is  no  intrinsic  or  absolute 
truth  or  falsehood  about  any  of  our  assumption-,  apart  from  tin:  manner  of 
their  working. 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  87 

and  satisfies  the  will  and  emotions,  so  the  corresponding 
unity  of  the  cosmos  will  not  be  a  purely  intellectual 
formality  (such  as  every  world  must  possess  ex  vi 
definitionis],  but  a  complete  harmony  of  our  whole 
experience. 

§25.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  in  passing  from  the 
a  priori  to  the  postulate  we  can  appeal  to  the  authority 
of  the  same  Kant  whose  characteristic  doctrine  of  an 
independent  theory  of  knowledge  we  have  been  compelled 
to  reject.  For  Kant,  in  accordance  with  his  peculiar 
greatness,  which  his  critics'  very  criticisms  have  ever 
recoiled  to  recognise,  became  partly  and  tardily  aware 
of  the  fatal  error  of  his  intellectualism  and  of  the 
impossibility  of  accommodating  the  whole  of  life  on 
the  basis  prescribed  by  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason. 
After  constructing  for  the  '  Pure  Reason  '  a  fearful  and 
wonderful  palace  of  varieties,  full  of  dungeons  for 
insoluble  antinomies,  dispossessed  sciences  and  incarcer- 
ated ideals,  haunted  and  pervaded  by  the  sombre  mystery 
of  the  Noumenon,  he  came  upon  the  problem  of  practical 
life  and  found  himself  unable  to  organise  the  moral  order 
similarly,  i.e.  without  reference  to  the  demands  which  we 
make  upon  experience. 

Hence  he  was  constrained  to  rationalise  conduct  by  the 
assumption  of  ethical  postulates,  which  boldly  encroached 
and  trespassed  on  the  forbidden  domain  of  the  unknowable, 
and  returned  thence  laden  with  rich  spoil — God,  Freedom, 
and  Immortality. 

This  achievement  is  too  often  underrated,  because 
it  seems  to  have  cost  Kant  so  little  —  merely  a  decree 
for  the  creation  of  one  more  hardly-noticed  addition  to 
the  lengthy  list  of  faculties,  yclept  the  Practical  Reason, 
conjured  into  existence  ad  hoc,  and  apparently  as 
obedient  as  the  rest  to  her  author's  word. 

But  in  reality  the  consequences  of  enunciating  the 
principle  of  the  postulate  are  far  inorc  momentous,  and 
with  a  little  reflection,  it  soon  appears  that  Kant  has 
evoked  a  force  which  he  cannot  curb  or  confine  within 
the  borders  of  his  system.  The  immediate  consequence 


88  F.  C.   S.  SCHILLER  n 

of  admitting  ethical  postulates  which  outflank  the 
'  critical '  negations  of  the  Pure  Reason,  is  a  conflict 
between  the  Pure  Reason,  which  had  denied  the 
possibility  of  knowing  the  subjects  of  the  Postulates,  and 
the  Practical  Reason,  which  insists  that  we  must 
practically  believe  and  act  on  these  tabooed  dogmas. 
Kant  essays  indeed  to  delimitate  an  arbitrary  and 
unscientific  frontier  between  their  domains,  based  upon 
psychologically  untenable  hairsplitting  between  knowledge 
and  belief,1  but  the  most  indulgent  reader  cannot  but  feel 
that  the  dualism  of  the  Pure  and  the  Practical  Reason 
is  intolerable  and  their  antagonism  irreconcilable,  while 
the  dual  character  which  this  doctrine  imposes  upon  Kant 
as  both  the  Cerberus  and  Herakles  of  the  Noiimenal 
world  is  calculated  to  bring  ridicule  both  upon  him  and 
upon  his  system. 

In  view  of  this  fundamental  incongruity  between  the 
organising  principles  of  knowledge  and  action,  one  of 
two  expedients  had  to  be  adopted.  The  first  is  that 
preferred  by  the  main  body  of  Kantians  to  whom  the  true 
and  epochmaking  Kant  is  the  writer  of  the  first  Critique.2 
They  regarded  the  Practical  Reason  as  a  bit  of  a  joke 
and  accounted  for  Kant's  subsequent  recantation  of  his 
'  critical '  results  either  wittily  like  Heine,3  or  dully,  like 
—but  no  !  too  many  have  written  on  the  subject  for  me 
to  mention  names  ! 

The  faithful  few  who  tried  to  balance  themselves  in 
the  unstable  equilibrium  of  Kant's  actual  position,  who 
believed  his  assurances  as  to  the  supremacy  of  the 
Practical  over  the  Theoretic  Reason  and  its  speculative 
impotence,  were  left  in  a  sad  perplexity.  They  accepted 
the  dogma,  without  venturing  to  define  it,  and  were 

1  I  low  can  one  prevent  one's  knowledge  nr.d  one's  belief  from  affecting  each 
other?  If  we  think  at  all,  either  the  knowledge  will  render  impossible  the  prac- 
tical belief,  or  a  conviction  will  arise  that  a  bdief  we  constantly  act  on,  which 
permeates  our  whole  being  and  never  fails  us,  is  true.  Personally  indeed  I 
should  say  that  such  was  the  origin  and  ratification  of  all  truth.  Conversely, 
a  belief  which  is  foredoomed  to  remain  a  mere  belief  soon  <  eases  to  be  acted 
on,  i.e.  to  be  a  belief  in  any  real  sense  at  all.  The  history  of  religions  is  full 
of  deplorable  examples. 

•  Or  rather  of  its  dominant  doctrine. 

3  Philosophic  in  Deutschland. 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  89 

troubled  with  an  uneasy  consciousness  that  it  would  not 
bear  thinking  out. 

Even  here,  however,  there  was  a  notable  exception. 
Fichte,  with  the  enterprise  and  courage  of  youth,  took 
the  Practical  Reason  seriously  in  hand,  and  combining 
the  doctrine  of  its  supremacy  with  Kant's  hints  as  to  a 
common  root  of  the  two  Reasons,1  proceeded  to  posit 
the  Self  as  an  '  absolutes  Sollen'  whence  were  to  be 
deduced  both  the  Not -Self  and  the  practical  and 
theoretical  activities.  The  whole  construction  of  the 
Wissenschaftslehre,  however,  proceeds  in  a  7-077-09  vTrepovpd- 
vto?  which  is  too  high  for  my  humbler  and  concreter 
purpose  —  I  mention  it  merely  as  a  partial  anticipation 
of  the  second  and  sounder  way  of  conceiving  the 
relations  of  the  Practical  and  the  Theoretical  Reason  to 
which  I  now  proceed. 

It  is  impossible  to  acquiesce  in  Kant's  compromise 
and  to  believe  by  the  might  of  the  Practical  Reason  in 
what  the  Theoretic  Reason  declares  to  be  unknowable. 
For  if  the  suprasensible  and  noumenal  does  not  really 
exist,  it  is  both  futile  and  immoral  to  tell  us  to  believe 
in  it  on  moral  grounds  ;  the  belief  in  it  is  an  illusion, 
and  will  fail  us  in  the  hour  of  our  direst  need.  If  the 
belief  in  the  postulates  is  to  have  any  moral  or  other 
value,  it  must  first  of  all  be  used  to  establish  the  reality  of 
the  objects  in  which  we  are  bidden  to  believe.  We  cannot 
act  as  if  the  existence  of  God,  freedom,  and  immortality 
were  real,  if  at  the  same  time  we  know  that  it  is  hopelessly 
inaccessible  and  indemonstrable.  We  must  therefore 
choose  ;  we  must  either  trust  the  Theoretical  or  the 
Practical  Reason  (unless,  indeed,  we  are  to  conclude 
with  the  sceptic  that  both  alike  are  discredited  by  their 
conflict). 

If  we  choose  to  abide  by  the  former,  the  undeniable 
fact  of  the  moral  consciousness  will  not  save  the  postulates 
of  the  Practical  Reason  from  annihilation.  It  may  postu- 
late as  it  pleases,  as  pathetically  or  ridiculously  as  it 
likes,  its  desire  shall  not  be  granted  to  it,  and  it  will 

cnt. 


90  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  n 

prove  nothing.  By  postulating  the  inadmissible  it  merely 
discredits  itself.  To  the  plea  that  the  moral  life  must 
live  and  feed  upon  the  substance  of  unverifiable  hopes, 
Science  must  ruthlessly  reply  "je  n'en  vois  pas  la  necessitc." 
If  then  the  moral  life  demands  freedom,  and  freedom  be 
an  impossibility,  the  moral  life  must  inexorably  be  crushed  ; 
Kant  is  der  Alles-zermalmende,  as  Heine  thought,  and 
nothing  more. 

If  on  the  other  hand  the  Practical  Reason  be  really 
the  higher,  if  it  really  has  the  right  to  postulate  and 
ethical  postulates  are  really  valid,  then  we  really  stand 
committed  to  far  more  than  Kant  supposed.  Postulation 
must  be  admitted  to  be  capable  of  leading  to  knowledge, 
nay,  perhaps  even  to  amount  to  knowledge,  and  indeed 
the  thought  will  readily  occur  that  it  lies  at  the  very 
roots  of  knowledge.  For  of  course  postulation  cannot 
be  confined  to  ethics.  The  principle,  if  valid,  must  be 
generalised  and  applied  all  round  to  the  organising 
principles  of  our  life.  The  Theoretic  Reason  will  in  this 
case  be  rendered  incapable  of  contesting  the  supremacy 
of  the  Practical  Reason  by  being  absorbed  by  it  and 
shown  to  be  derivative.  Thus  postulation  is  either  not 
valid  at  all,  or  it  is  the  foundation  of  the  whole  theoretic 
superstructure. 

We  stand  committed,  therefore,  to  the  assertion  that 
in  the  last  resort  it  is  our  practical  activity  that  gives 
the  real  clue  to  the  nature  of  things,  while  the  world  as 
it  appears  to  the  Theoretic  Reason  is  secondary — a  view 
taken  from  an  artificial,  abstract  and  restricted  standpoint, 
itself  dictated  by  the  Practical  Reason  and  devised  for 
the  satisfaction  of  its  ends. 

But  to  carry  through  this  programme  the  price  must 
be  paid.  The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason  must  be  not 
merely  revised,  but  re-written.  It  must  be  re-written  in 
the  light  of  the  principle  of  the  Postulate.  Or  as  Prof. 
Ward  has  excellently  put  it,  Kant's  three  Critiques  must 
be  combined  into  one.1  The  simplest  thing  of  all, 
however,  is  to  proceed  independently  to  show  in  what 

1   Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  ii.  p.    133.      'Die  whole  passage  is  admirable. 


ii  AXIOMS  AS  POSTULATES  91 

manner  our  fundamental  axioms  are  postulated,  now 
that  we  may  be  held  to  have  exhibited  the  necessity  of 
the  principle  and  its  historical  justification.1 

IV 

§  26.  We  have  already  incidentally  discovered  some 
of  the  chief  characteristics  of  the  Postulate,  such  as  its 
universality  and  necessity  (§  i  i),  its  experimental  char- 
acter (^  5,  8,  i  i),  its  psychological  origin  from  practical 
needs,  its  function  in  holding  together  the  intellectual  and 
practical  sides  of  our  nature  and  developing  the  former 
out  of  the  latter  (§§  24,  25).  But  it  will  not  be  amiss  to 
consider  some  further  points  of  a  general  character  before 
proceeding  actually  to  trace  the  development  of  specimen 
postulates  into  axioms. 

The  first  point  which  perhaps  will  bear  further 
emphasis  is  that  mere  postulating  is  not  in  general  enough 
to  constitute  an  axiom.  The  postulation  is  the  expression 
of  the  motive  forces  which  impel  us  towards  a  certain 
assumption,  an  outcome  of  every  organism's  unceasing 
struggle  to  transmute  its  experience  into  harmonious  and 
acceptable  forms.  The  organism  cannot  help  postulating, 
because  it  cannot  help  trying  (§  5),  because  it  must  act  or 
die,  and  because  from  the  first  it  will  not  acquiesce  in  less 
than  a  complete  harmony  of  its  experience.  It  therefore 
needs  assumptions  it  can  act  on  and  live  by,  which  will 
serve  as  means  to  the  attainment  of  its  ends.  These 
assumptions  it  obtains  by  postulating  them  in  the  hope 
that  they  may  prove  tenable,  and  the  axioms  are  thus  the 
outcome  of  a  Will-to-bclicvc  which  has  had  its  way,  which 
has  dared  to  postulate,  and,  as  William  James  has  so 
superbly  shown,  has  been  rewarded  for  its  audacity  by 
finding  that  the  world  granted  what  was  demanded." 


1    For   its   relation    to   Aristotelinnisin,  cf.   the 
Mind,  N.S.,  No.  42. 

-  Practical  postulrUion  is  the  real  meaning  of  his  much  misconstrued  doctrine 
of  the  '  Will  to  believe.'  It  is  not  so  much  exhortation  concerning  what  we  ought 
/.'  do  in  the  future  as  analysis  of  what  we  luiit  done  in  the  past.  And  the  critics 
of  the  doctrine  have  mostly  ignored  the  essential  addition  to  the  '  will  to  believe,' 
viz.  '  at  vour  risk,'  which  leaves  ample  scope  for  the  testing  of  the  assumed 
belief  by  experience  of  its  praetieal  results. 


92  F.  C.   S.   SCHILLER  n 

But  the  world  does  not  always  grant  our  demands. 
The  course  of  postulation  does  not  always  run  smooth. 
We  cannot  tell  beforehand  whether,  and  to  what  extent,  a 
postulate  can  be  made  to  work.  Compliance  with  some 
of  our  demands  is  only  extorted  from  the  refractory 
material  of  our  '  world,'  by  much  effort  and  ingenuity  and 
repeated  trial.  In  other  cases  the  confirmation  we  seek 
for  remains  incomplete,  and  the  usefulness  of  the  postulate 
is  proportionately  restricted.  Sometimes  again  we  may 
even  be  forced  to  desist  from  a  postulate  which  proves 
unworkable. 

It  follows  that  we  may  find  postulates  (or  attempts 
at  such)  in  every  stage  of  development.  They  may 
rise  from  the  crudest  cravings  of  individual  caprice  to 
universal  desires  of  human  emotion  ;  they  may  stop  short 
at  moral,  aesthetic,  and  religious  postulates,  whose  validity 
seems  restricted  to  certain  attitudes  of  mind,  or  aspects 
of  experience,  or  they  may  make  their  appeal  to  all 
intelligence  as  such  ;  their  use  as  principles  of  the  various 
sciences  may  be  felt  to  be  methodological,  or  they  may 
have  attained  to  a  position  so  unquestioned,  useful,  and 
indispensable,  in  a  word  so  axiomatic,  that  the  thought  of 
their  being  conceived  otherwise  never  enters  our  heads. 

But  even  the  most  exalted  of  these  ap^al  dvaTroSeiKrot, 
TWV  fjii]  ev8e^ofMevd)v  aXXo)?  e^eiv  differ  from  their  humble 
relatives  in  human  wishes  not  in  the  mode  of  their  genesis, 
but  in  their  antiquity,  in  the  scope  of  their  usefulness,  in 
the  amount  and  character  of  the  confirmation  which  they 
have  received  in  the  course  of  experience,  in  a  word,  in 
their  working  and  not  in  their  origin.  They  are  the 
successful  survivors  in  the  process  of  sifting  or  '  selection ' 
which  has  power  also  over  the  products  of  our  intellectual 
striving. 

But  it  ill  becomes  them  on  this  account  to  give  them- 
selves airs  and  to  regard  their  position  as  immutable  and 
unassailable.  For  in  many  cases  they  retain  their  hold 
over  our  affections  only  faute  de  mieiix.  They  are  the 
best  assumptions  we  can  work  with,  but  not  the  best  we 
can  conceive.  And  some  one  may  some  day  discover  a 


ii  AXIOMS  AS  POSTULATES  93 

way  to  work  with  what  are  now  unsupported  postulates, 
and  so  raise  them  to  axiomatic  rank.  Thus  whatever 
axioms  we  may  at  any  time  employ  are,  and  ever  remain 
relative  to  the  nature  of  our  desires  and  our  experience, 
and  so  long  as  changes  may  occur  in  either,  inexhaustible 
possibilities  of  corresponding  developments  must  be  ad- 
mitted in  the  list  of  our  axiomatic  principles.  An 
emotional  postulate  may  become  the  guiding  principle  of 
a  new  science,  a  methodological  principle  may  become 
superfluous  and  be  discarded  or  be  superseded  by  a  better, 
a  primitive  desire  may  die  down  and  cease  to  nourish  a 
postulate,  nay  even  a  full  blown  axiom  may  be  conceived 
as  becoming  otiose  under  changed  conditions  of  experience. 
While  our  empiricism  is  thus  too  radical,  and  our 
trust  in  experience  too  honest,  to  permit  our  theory  to 
assign  to  any  axiom  an  absolutely  indefeasible  status, 
we  must  yet  admit  that  practically  the  possibility  of 
modifying  them  is  one  that  may  safely  be  neglected. 
The  great  axioms  or  postulates  are  so  ineradicably 
intertwined  with  the  roots  of  our  being,  have  so  intim- 
ately permeated  every  nook  and  cranny  of  our  Weltan- 
schauung have  become  so  ingrained  in  all  our  habits  of 

O  *  O 

thought,  that  we  may  practically  rely  on  them  to  stand 
fast  so  long  as  human  thought  endures.  For  apart  from 
the  fact  that  it  would  be  gratuitous  to  suppose  a  revolution 
in  our  experience  sufficient  to  upset  them,  they  are 
protected  by  our  laziness.  To  think  always  costs  an 
effort,  and  the  effort  of  thought  required  to  undo  the 
structure  of  mind  which  has  grown  up  with  the  ages 
would  be  so  gigantic  that  \ve  should  shrink  with  a 
shudder  from  the  very  thought  thereof.  And  all  for 
the  sake  of  what  ?  Merely  to  show  that  the  mental 
order  was  constructed  bit  by  bit  by  postulation  and 
might  be  constructed  otherwise  !  And  would  it  not  be 
sheer  insanity  to  upset  the  authority  of  the  axioms  in  use 
unless  we  were  prepared  to  substitute  others  of  superior 
value?  There  is  therefore  in  general  little  prospect  of 
revolutionary  plots  against  the  validity  of  axioms.  The 
enterprise  would  too  much  resemble  an  attempt  by  a  coral 


94  F.  C.   S.   SCHILLER  n 

polyp  to  cut  itself  adrift  from  its  reef  and  to  start  de 
novo.  So  we  do  as  the  corals  do  and  build  on  the 
corpses  of  our  ancestors,  hoping  that  if  they  were  right 
we  also  shall  profit  by  following  suit,  that  if  they  were 
wrong,  the  consciousness  of  our  wrongness  will  at  least  be 
borne  in  upon  us  with  a  less  painful  promptitude  than  if 
we  had  set  out  to  go  wrong  on  our  own  account. 

§  27.  It  follows  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  will 
readily  be  comprehended,  that,  if  our  axioms  have  the 
origin  alleged,  if  postulation  pervades  our  whole  mental 
life  and  forms  the  nisus  fonnativus  of  mental  development, 
no  exhaustive,  or  even  systematic,  table  of  axioms  can, 
or  need,  be  drawn  up.  In  principle  their  number  and 
nature  must  depend  on  our  experience  and  psychical 
temperament.  They  will  radiate  from  human  personality 
as  their  centre,  and  their  common  service  in  ministering 
to  its  needs  will  bestow  upon  them  sufficient  unity  to 
debar  us  from  attempts  to  force  them  into  artificial 
systems  which  at  best  can  result  only  in  sham  '  deduc- 
tions '  of  the  rational  necessity  of  the  actual,  while 
making  no  provision  for  the  possibilities  of  future 
development. 

We  may  therefore  absolve  ourselves  from  the  supposed 
duty  of  giving  a  '  deduction  of  the  categories,'  or  even 
an  exhaustive  list  of  axioms  and  postulates.  This  is 
the  more  fortunate  as  it  justifies  us  in  considering  only 
such  select  specimens  of  the  growth  of  postulates  and 
their  development  into  axioms,  as  may  suffice  to  illustrate 
the  principle,  or  prove  particularly  interesting,  and  enables 
us  to  save  much  time  and  spare  much  weariness. 

V 

§  28.  Which  of  our  fundamental  axioms  I  select 
therefore,  does  not  matter  much,  any  more  than  the 
order  in  which  they  are  treated  ;  but  as  I  am  anxious 
not  to  incur  the  charge  of  shirking  difficulties,  I  shall 
begin  with  tracing  the  genesis  of  one  which  is  perhaps 
the  most  difficult,  as  it  is  certainly  one  of  the  most 


H  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  95 

fundamental  and  axiomatic — viz.  the  basis  of  all  thinking 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  the  Principle  of  Identity. 

Not,  of  course,  that  I  propose  to  derive  it  out  of 
nothing.  I  must  entirely  disavow  the  Hegelian  (or  hyper- 
Hegelian  ?)  ambition  of  conjuring  all  Being  into  existence 
out  of  Not-being  by  a  Dialectical  Process  working  in 
vacuo  ;  I  have  not  even  got  the  whole  of  concrete  reality 
up  my  sleeve  to  insinuate  bits  thereof  into  my  conclusions, 
whenever  and  wherever  my  reader's  attention  has  been 
relaxed  by  some  tortuous  obscurity  of  argumentation.  I 
prefer  honestly  to  start  from  what  may  be  taken  to  be,  so 
far  as  psychology  can  describe  it,  matter  of  psychical  fact. 
For  I  hold  that  epistemological  speculation  like  every 
other,  must  take  something  factual  for  granted,  if  it  is  not 
to  be  vain  imagining,  and  defy  those  who  contest  my 
presuppositions  to  state  the  alternatives  they  are  in  a 
position  to  offer.  If  on  this  account  a  claim  be  advanced 
that  my  initial  basis  of  psychical  fact  is  a  priori,  that  is, 
prior  to  the  axiom  to  be  derived,  I  make  no  objection. 
I  am  content  that  it  should  be  called  so,  if  the  phrase 
comforts  anybody,  and  if  I  am  permitted  to  point  out  (i) 
that  such  priority  is  only  relative,  pro  Jiac  vice,  and  for  the 
purposes  of  the  present  inquiry,  (2)  it  is  admitted  to  lie 
below  the  level  of  what  can  properly  be  called  thought. 
For  I  wish  to  make  it  quite  plain  that  the  psychical  fact 
from  which  I  propose  to  start,  is  on  what  I  may  perhaps 
best  call  the  sentient  level  of  consciousness,  i.e.  involves  only 
a  consciousness  which  feels  pleasure  and  pain,  which 
strives  and  desires  without  as  yet  clear  self-consciousness 
or  conception  of  objects. 

In  so  doing,  I  assume,  of  course,  the  existence  of 
consciousness  or  sentiency  as  a  datum,  and  abstain  from 
the  alluring  expedient  of  conducting  my  whole  plea  on 
the  more  concrete  plane  of  biological  discussion,  obvious 
and  seductive  as  it  might  appear  to  start  thence  and  to 
argue  (i)  that  the  genesis — by  a  so-called  'accidental 
variation  '  -  of  the  concomitance  of  psychical  with 
physical  process  was  of  great  survival-value  to  the  lump 
of  matter  which  first  happened  to  find  itself  alive  and 


96  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  n 

dimly  conscious  ;  (2)  that  subsequently  great  advantages 
accrued  to  organisms  in  which  these  mental  processes 
cohered  and  coalesced  and  became  continuous  and 
centralised,  until  they  culminated  in  self-consciousness. 
There  is  a  fatal  facility  and  engaging  modernity  about 
arguments  of  this  sort,  and  they  bring  out  an  important 
aspect  of  the  truth.  For  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that 
every  step  in  the  development  of  our  axioms,  including 
even  the  steps  hypothetically  conceived  to  precede  con- 
sciousness, could  be  plausibly  formulated  in  terms  of 
survival-value.  But  though  it  might  be  easy  in  this  -way 
to  enlist  the  support  of  the  biologically-minded,  I  prefer 
to  conduct  the  argument  on  a  higher  and  more  philo- 
sophic plane,  in  order  to  avoid  even  the  appearance  of 
the  varepov  irporepov  which  is  inevitably  involved  in 
every  derivation  of  consciousness. 

In  assuming  consciousness,  moreover,  we  are  bound  to 
assume  also  the  characteristic  features  whereby  it  is 
psychologically  described,  e.g.  its  continuity,  coherence, 
conativeness,  and  purposiveness.  It  should  be  observed 
further  that  in  pointing  out  these  characteristics  of 
consciousness,  we  are  not  attempting  to  define 
consciousness.  For  why  should  we  court  failure  by 
propounding  an  inevitably  inadequate  formula,  to  contain 
and  constrain  that  which  embraces  all  existence, 
generates  all  formulas,  uses  them  and  casts  them  aside  in 
its  victorious  development  ?  Whoever  is  possessed  of 
consciousness  himself  will  recognise  to  what  in  him 
the  description  of  consciousness  refers ;  unless  he  were 
capable  of  this,  the  most  exhaustive  definitions  would 
impinge  on  him  in  vain  and  without  conveying  a  glimmer 
of  meaning.  That  consciousness  is  a  psychic  fact 
therefore  I  shall  assume  ;  what  it  is,  I  must  leave  to  my 
reader's  own  consciousness  to  inform  him.  I  have  then 
in  consciousness  a  TTOV  <TTW  of  psychic  fact  beyond  which 
we  neither  can  nor  need  go. 

Nor  I  think  need  we  allow  the  objection  to  perturb 
us  that  our  present  conception  of  consciousness  may  be 
miserably  inadequate.  In  view  of  its  continuing  develop- 


it  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  97 

ment  in  the  course  of  experience  the  suggestion  is 
probably  true  ;  but  we  do  not  need  the  adequate  concep- 
tion of  consciousness,  which  could  be  reached  only  in  the 
seventh  heaven,  and  there  might  have  become  superfluous. 
And  in  any  case  our  ignorance  of  what  the  ulterior 
development  of  consciousness  may  portend,  is  no  reason 
for  refusing  to  recognise  in  it  the  actual  features  which 
are  relevant  to  our  purpose. 

§  29.  Now  among  the  factual  features  ijnplicit  in  all 
consciousness,  though  perhaps  hard  to  distinguish  in  its 
lower  forms  and  not  as  yet  completely  expressed  in  any 
that  we  have  so  far  reached,  is  an  identical  self — or  what 
we  are  subsequently  able  so  to  designate.  By  this  I  do 
not  of  course  mean  anything  lofty  and  metaphysical,  but 
merely  a  convenient  description  of  certain  psychical  facts. 
I  have  no  quarrel  with  the  psychologists  who  argue 
against  an  antiquated  view  of  futile  and  unknowable  soul- 
substance,  and  insist  that  the  only  self  they  can  recognise 
is  just  the  implicit  '  owning '  of  all  conscious  processes. 
If  the  coherence  and  continuity  of  conscious  processes 
can  under  the  proper  conditions  develop  into  explicit 
self- consciousness,  that  is  enough  ;  and  so  long  as  the 
psychologists  are  able  and  eager  to  tell  us  all  about  the 
psychogenesis  of  the  self,  I  see  no  reason  why  their 
accounts  should  not  be  referred  to  with  gratitude  and 
respect. 

But  my  problem  is  not  one  of  origin,  but  of  the  origin 
of  validity  ;  i.e.  assuming  this  conscious  self  to  have  been 
developed,  I  have  to  trace  out  how  it  proceeds  to  the 
conception  and  postulation  of  identity.  The  felt  self- 
identity  of  consciousness,  which,  however  it  arises,  is  a 
psychical  fact,  is,  I  contend,  the  ultimate  psychical  basis 
for  raising  the  great  postulate  of  logical  identity,  which  is 
the  first  and  greatest  of  the  principles  of  discursive  thought 
and  introduces  order  into  the  chaos  of  presentations  and 
analyses  the  av^/K^v^vov  of  primitive  experience. 

Now  this  achievement  is  not  a  '  necessity  of  pure 
thought'  so  much  as  of  practical  life;  and  without  postula- 
tion it  would  remain  impossible.  The  unceasing  flow  of 

H 


98  F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER  n 

like  impressions  by  itself  would  not  suggest  the  recurrence 
of  what  has  preserved  its  identity  in  change  ;  nor  would 
even  its  felt  likenesses  suffice  to  engender  a  perception 
of  identity.1  To  obtain  identity  we  must  first  desire  it 
and  demand  it  ;  and  this  demand,  though  it  would  be 
impossible  if  we  did  not  feel  ourselves  to  be  identical 
selves  and  fruitless  if  we  could  not  discover  such  around 
us,  is  a  distinct  step  beyond  anything  given  in  passive 
experiencing. 

Thus  the  conception  of  identity  is  a  free  creation  of  a 
postulating  intelligence  which  goes  beyond  its  experience 
to  demand  the  satisfaction  of  its  desires.  But  it  must 
have  been  the  felt  sameness  of  the  continuous  conscious 
life  that  suggested  the  clue  to  the  recognition  of  the  same 
in  the  recurrence  of  the  like. 

§  30.  Edwin  meets  Angelina  in  her  winter  furs  whom 
he  admired  last  summer  in  fig  leaves  ;  he  recognises  her 
identity  in  the  differences  of  her  primitive  attire.  That 
such  things  as  the  persistence  of  identity  through  change 
should  be,  and  what  they  mean,  he  could  learn  only  from 
the  immediate  experience  of  his  own  identity.  That  they 
are  is  his  postulate,  a  postulate  that  fills  his  heart  with  the 
delicious  hope  that  Angelina  will  smile  on  him  as  bc- 
witchingly  as  before.  Why  should  I  introduce  sordidness 
into  this  romance,  by  dwelling  also  on  the  coarsely 
practical  advantages  of  recognising  objects  in  one's  sur- 
roundings ? 

Yet  it  is  surely  plain  that  the  recognition  of  the  same 
arnid  variety  of  circumstance  is  advantageous  ;  and  if 
desiring  it  to  be  true,  because  he  felt  his  whole  happiness 
depended  on  it,  Edwin  made  bold  to  postulate  it,  he  well 
deserved  the  rich  rewards  which  poured  in  as  an  over- 
whelming experience  of  its  working  confirmed  his  postulate. 

1  It  seems  to  me  clear  that  psychologically  perception  of  likeness  is  ultimate, 
anterior  to  identity,  and  incapable  of  being  reduced  to  it.  The  analysis  of  likeness 
into  '  partial  identity  '  is  a  logical  procedure  which  occurs  when  we  manipulate 
the  psychical  fact  with  a  logical  purpose  and  try  to  conceive,  the  likeness.  I'.ut 
then  conception  is  admittedly  a  matter  of  thought,  and  thought  rests  on  the 
principle  of  identity.  What  the  tautology  of  the  Hegelian  definition  ('identity 
is  identity  in  difference')  is  struggling  to  express  (or  conceal?)  is  really  the  use  of 
logical  conception  in  manipulating  the  felt  likenesses.  Cf.  the  discussion  in 
Mind  between  Prof.  James  and  Mr.  Bradley  (X.S. ,  Xos.  5-8). 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  99 

We,  of  course  are  far  removed  from  the  scene  of  this 
primitive  idyll,  and  have  long  since  ceased  to  notice  what 
a  postulate  identity  was,  and  for  the  matter  of  that  still 
is.  We  need  a  world  of  philosophic  quibbling  to  bring 
before  our  eyes  the  fact  that  strict  identity  never  yet 
was  found  by  land  or  sea,  but  is  always  and  everywhere 
a  construction  of  our  mind,wtf<&  by  voluntary  concentration 
on  the  essential  and  rejection  of  the  irrelevant.1 

Nor,  of  course,  did  Edwin  know  this.  He  had  pos- 
tulated under  the  impulsion  of  practical  need,  without 
knowing  what  he  did.  The  enormity  of  the  logical 
consequences  of  his  act  was  hidden  from  him  and  only 
gradually  revealed.  Still  less  did  Angelina  know  that 
she  had  become  the  mate  of  the  first  animal  rationale. 

Edwin,  again,  could  not  foresee  that  his  original 
postulate  would  not  suffice,  and  that  stupendous  efforts 
of  abstraction  were  still  before  him  if  he  would  complete 
the  postulate  of  identity  and  attain  to  the  purity  of  its 
present  logical  use. 

In  recognising  Angelina  he  had  of  course  (although 
he  realised  it  not)  construed  her  identity  upon  the  model 
of  his  own.  But  the  concrete  given  identity  of  self- 
consciousness  is  a  slender  basis  for  the  construction  of 
the  logical  ideal  ;  indeed  it  even  proves  unequal  to  the 
requirements  of  a  social  life,  and  needs  on  this  account  to 
be  sublimated  and  idealised  into  a  concept  that  transcends 
the  given. 

The  concretely  identical,  alas,  changes  in  the  flow  of 
differences !  Edwin  has  grown  bald  and  Angelina 
wrinkled,  and  I  grieve  to  say,  they  often  quarrel.  They 
are  no  longer  what  they  were  when  each  succumbed  to 
the  other's  charms,  and  identity  seems  dubious  and  a 
fraud.  FJicu  fugaces  Postumc  !  Postulate  !  The  cure  is 
a  hair  of  the  dog  that  bit  you.  Edwin  must  postulate 
once  more,  mu^t  postulate  a  more  permanent  self  which 
rises  superior  to  such  mischances  of  a  mortal  life,  and, 


ioo  F.  C.   S.   SCHILLER  n 

ever  at  its  best,  feeds  on  ambrosia  and  drains  the  nectared 
cups  with  changeless  gods  ! 

Gods,  did  I  escape  my  own  notice  saying?  What 
are  gods  and  how  do  they  arise  ?  As  men,  but  greater  ! 
Projections  of  ideals  which  the  actual  suggests,  but  seems 
to  trample  under  foot !  The  sign-posts  clearly  point  to 
the  religious  postulates  and  a  track  which  here  diverges 
from  our  own. 

§31.  For  though  it  would  be  fascinating  to  trace 
the  course  of  postulation  to  which  religious  concep- 
tions owe  their  birth,  we  must  follow  the  dry  and  dusty 
road  of  logical  postulation  by  whose  side  the  hardiest 
flowers  of  the  boldest  rhetoric  can  scarce  contrive  to 
blossom.  A  constant  and  unchanging  self  is  needed 
not  merely  to  satisfy  what  subsequently  develops  into 
the  religious  instinct,  but  also  in  order  to  yield  a  trust- 
worthy standard  of  comparison  for  the  purposes  of 
everyday  life.  If  Edwin  likes  his  mammoth  steak  well 
done  to-day  and  underdone  to-morrow,  no  woman  can 
live  with  him.  A  stable  standard  of  reference  in  our 
judgments  is  an  urgent  practical  need.  Hence  the  ideal 
of  absolute  identity  begins  to  dawn  upon  the  logical 
horizon,  and  it  is  recognised  that  the  possibility  of  mean- 
ing depends  on  its  constancy,  and  that  perfect  constancy 
could  be  realised  only  by  perfect  knowledge. 

And,  not  otherwise,  recognition  leads  on  to  cognition, 
and  cognition  to  the  same  postulate  of  conceptual  identity 
or  constancy.  The  process  which  took  the  recurrence  of 
a  similar  presentation  to  mean  that  of  the  same  individual, 
will  bear  extension  to  the  resemblances  of  natural  kinds. 
From  recognising  individuals  we  proceed  to  recognise 
species,  a  task  made  easier  by  the  psychological  careless- 
ness which  overlooks  individual  differences.1  Now  every 
step  in  this  process  is  a  training  in  abstraction.  At  first 
even  Edwin  could  not  recognise  his  Angelina  without 
divesting  her  (in  thought)  of  her  enveloping  differences. 

1  It  is  conceivable,  indeed,  that  this  process  actually  preceded  in  practical 
urgency,  and  therefore,  in  time,  the  recognition  of  individuality.  Hut  that  would 
not  impair  the  argument,  fur  under  some  conditions  the  discrimination  of 
individuals  is  unnecessary  and  all  individuals  we  practically  the  same. 


ii  AXIOMS   AS   POSTULATES  101 

But  by  the  time  he  can  discern  in  their  manifold  disguises 
the  surrounding  objects  that  are  useful  or  dangerous,  he 
has  a  pretty  sound  working  control  of  that  weapon  of 
analysis  which  we  now  call  the  principle  of  identity. 

No  doubt  it  still  is,  and  long  remains,  an  ei>v\ov  eZ8ov 
— pure  logic  not  becoming  needful  so  soon  as  pure 
mathematics — but  sooner  or  later  some  one  was  sure  to 
ask  what  was  this  universal  '  man  '  which  was  so  glibly 
predicated  of  white,  black,  yellow,  and  brown.  And  then 
of  course  the  i/X?;  would  be  in  the  fire,  and  a  bloodless 
ballet  of  philosophers  would  commence  to  dance  round 
the  unearthly  conflagration. 

i^  32.  I  forgot  to  mention,  by  the  way,  that  soon  after 
recognising  identity  in  Angelina,  Edwin  had  (of  course) 
invented  language.  As  to  why  the  expression  of  his 
emotions  on  that  prehistoric  occasion  resulted  in  the 
euphonious  sound  of  "  Angelina,"  he  can  indeed  state 
nothing  intelligible.  But  by  association's  artful  aid  he 
got  into  the  habit  of  venting  this  utterance  whenever  he 
saw  her.  And  then  one  morning  he  not  only  said  it, 
but  meant  it  !  Prodigious  !  the  sound  had  become  a 
symbol !  It  puzzled  him  very  much,  and  he  had  that, 
until  then,  unheard-of  thing,  a  nervous  headache,  for 
three  days  afterwards,  which  puzzled  him  still  more. 
He  put  it  down  to  daemonic  inspiration  (a  notable  advance 
in  theology  !)  and  ivcnt  on  thinking.  Then  he  proceeded 
to  instruct  Angelina,  and  after  a  painful  process  (to  her  !) 
got  her  to  answer  to  her  name.  And,  behold,  when  their 
children  were  born  they  all  learned  to  talk,  i.e.  to  apply 
similar  and  identifiable  sounds  to  an  indefinite  plurality 
of  similar  objects.  \Vhich,  of  course,  in  those  days  was 
an  immense  advantage.  And  ever  since  the  children  of 
men  have  been  the  only  anthropoids  that  could  talk  and 
impart  ideas — whether  they  had  them  or  not  ! 

All  this  happened  such  a  very  long  time  ago  that  I 
cannot  exactly  teil  you  when,  and  have  had  like  IMato* 
to  make  a  myth  of  it.  Whether  in  so  doing  I  have  not 
condensed  into  a  single  myth  what  was  really  the  gradual 
achievement  of  many  generations  of  mortals  it  were 


102  F.  C.   S.   SCHILLER  i, 

pedantic  to  inquire.  The  illustration  serves,  I  hope,  to 
bring  out  the  main  point,  viz.  that  the  affirmation  of 
identity,  without  which  there  is  neither  thought  nor 
judgment,  is  essentially  an  act  of  postulation  (more  or 
less  consciously  felt  to  be  such)  which  presupposes  as  its 
psychological  conditio  sine  qua  non  the  feeling  of  the  self- 
identity  and  '  unity  '  of  consciousness. 

§33-  The  derivation  of  identity  I  have  sketched  also 
goes  some  way,  I  think,  to  explain  why  in  real  life  men 
so  long  enjoyed  immunity  from  the  ravages  of  the  predi- 
cation puzzle.  Identity  being  a  practical  postulate, 
modelled  on  the  immediacy  of  felt  self-identity,  the 
postulation  of  absolute  conceptual  identity  developed  very 
slowly,  and  there  never  was  any  practical  danger  lest  the 
meaning  of  the  postulate  should  be  pressed  into  a  form 
calculated  to  defeat  its  original  purpose.  The  inherence 
of  attributes  in  a  substance,  the  relation  of  a  thing  to  its 
qualities,  are  not  as  such  practical  problems,  and  the 
difficulties  which  the  intellectual  play  of  reflective  idlers 
has  discovered  in  them  did  not  exist  in  practice.  In 
practice  the  meaning  of  terms  was  defined  by  their  use, 
and  the  will-o'-the-wisp  of  a  'truth'  dissevered  from 
utility  had  not  yet  been  permitted  to  frustrate  the  very 
instinct  of  which  it  claimed  to  be  the  loftiest  satisfaction, 
nor  to  eviscerate  the  conception  of  '  truth '  of  its  real 
meaning. 

And  so  tacit  convention  kept  the  identity  postulated 
true  to  a  sense  that  allowed  of  the  possibility  of  predi- 
cation. 

Hence  that  ^>"  should  be  S  and  yet  also  P,  nay  that  it 
could  be  /',  just  because  it  was  primarily  .V,  seemed  no 
more  remarkable  than  that  the  self  which  was  glutted 
with  beef  yesterday  should  to-day  be  hungry,  and  just 
because  of  this  identity,  should  prepare  once  more  to 
assume  the  predicate  of  'beef-eater.'  It  would  be  vain 
therefore  to  impose  on  the  logic  of  postulation  with 
bogies  of  an  identity  excluding  differences  ;  the  calm 
reply  would  be  that  postulates  need  not,  and  must  not,  be 
pressed  beyond  the  point  at  which  they  fulfil  their 


ii  AXIOMS   AS   POSTULATES  103 

purpose.  An  interpretation  of  identity  therefore  which 
excluded  predication  would  stultify  our  supreme  purpose 
in  reasoning  as  completely  as  a  failure  to  identify,  and 
would  therefore  be  invalid. 

And  yet  we  should  be  equally  stern  in  resisting  the 
allurements  to  evade  the  difficulty  by  relaxing  the 
strictness  with  which  identity  is  postulated  in  every  valid 
argument.  To  the  objection  that  '  abstract  identity ' 
would  be  the  death  of  predication,  because  if  A  were 
perfectly  and  unalterably  A  it  could  never  become  any- 
thing else,  the  answer  is  plain.  Abstract  identity  is  never 
found,  but  has  always  to  be  made.  It  is  made,  there- 
fore, in  whatever  way  and  to  whatever  extent  it  is  needed, 
and  remains  subservient  to  the  purpose  of  its  maker.  It  is 
a  postulated  ideal  which  works,  though  nature  never  quite 
conforms  to  it  ;  before  it  could  be  fully  realised,  the  need  to 
which  it  ministers,  the  necessity  of  unceasing  predication 
which  is  forced  upon  us  by  the  Becoming  of  the  world, 
would  have  had  to  pass  away ;  and  once  we  had  transcended 
change,  identity,  together  with  the  processes  of  discursive 
thinking  which  are  built  upon  it,  might  safely  be  added  to 
the  weapons  discarded  by  the  spirit  in  its  advance  towards 
perfection.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  identity  continues  to 
be  useful  just  because  it  continues  to  be  a  postulate  which 
never  is  fully  realised.  It  may  therefore  blandly  be 
admitted  that  A  is  A  is  an  impotent  truism,  so  long  as  it 
is  vividly  realised  that  A  shall  be  A  is  an  active  truth  that 
remoulds  the  world. 

^34.  It  is  in  its  limitations,  perhaps,  that  the  postu- 
latory  nature  of  the  principle  of  identity,  and  of  the 
conceptual  use  of  mental  imagery  based  on  it,  appears 
most  clearly.  For,  as  has  already  been  remarked,  there 
ever  remains  a  discrepancy  between  the  identity  of  the 
real  and  the  logical  ideal,  a  discrepancy  to  which  \ve  have 
grown  accustomed,  a  discrepancy  on  which  the  use 
of  the  concept  depends,  but  which,  indubitably,  renders 
identity  a  postulate  rather  than  a  '  law.' 

For  in  strict  fact  nothing  ever  is,  everything  liccinucs, 
and  turns  our  most  conscientious  predications  into  false- 


104  F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER  n 

hoods.  The  real  is  here,  there,  and  everywhere,  until  we 
stop  breathless  in  our  chase  and  point,  gasping.  The 
'  eternal  truths,'  unable  to  sustain  the  pace,  have  long 
ceased  to  reside  with  us — if  indeed  they  ever  gladdened  us 
with  theophanies  even  in  the  Golden  Age  of  Plato — and 
have  gone  down  or  up  (one  really  cannot  be  precise  about 
astronomical  directions  in  these  Copernican  days)  into  the 
TOTTOV  vorjTot,  where  it  is  possible  to  preserve  one's 
dignity  without  doing  any  work.  In  their  stead  we  have 
craftily  devised  conventions,  such  as  that  becoming  shall 
mean  being,  and  that  for  our  purposes  relative  identity  may, 
under  the  proper  precautions,  serve  as  well  as  absolute. 
But  we  stand  unalterably  committed  to  the  postulate  that 
identity  there  shall  be,  though  everywhere  we  have  to 
make  it  and  by  force  to  fit  it  on  the  facts.  And  so  we 
get  on  very  nicely  with  truths,  as  with  dresses,  that  last 
only  for  the  occasion  or  for  a  season,  and  console  ourselves 
with  visions  that  in  the  end  Being  will  absorb  Becoming 
and  impermanence  cease  from  troubling  and  predication 
be  completely  true  and  unchanging  and  perfect  and 
categorical.  If  by  that  time  we  have  outgrown  the  very 
need  of  predication,  it  does  not  matter  to  us  now  ;  for 
nothing  of  the  sort  is  likely  to  happen  to  any  of  us  for 
ever  so  long  ! 

VI 

§35-  The  myth  of  Edwin  and  Angelina  has  re-minded 
me  (perchance  by  dvdp,vi}crt<;')  of  another  of  st  11  more- 
ancient  date,  and  if  I  have  obtained  forgive-iess  for 
telling  so  much  about  them,  I  may  venture  to  Delate  the 
story  of  another  being  whose  name  was  Gru'ips.  Or 
rather,  that  would  have  been  his  name,  if  name.1-  had  then 
been  invented.  I  cannot  quite  say  who  or  \vhlt  Crumps 
was,  but  he  lived  ever  so  long  ago  and  was  v'O'  stupid, 
very  nearly  as  stupid  as  everybody  else.  -Ic  was  so 
stupid  that  he  did  not  know  the  difference  between  himself 
and  other  people,  but  still  in  his  muddled  w;}'' — he  lived, 
I  fancy,  in  the  slime  at  the  bottom  of  the  sea — he  wanted 
to  be  happy,  though  he  did  not  know  hims'f  nor  what 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  105 

his  happiness  could  be.  But  one  day  (or  night- — it  does 
not  really  matter  which  it  was, — because  there  was  no  light; 
he  made  a  mistake  and  got  outside  a  jagged  flint  stone 
which  he  could  not  digest.  It  hurt  him  very  much  and 
he  nearly  died.  But  ever  after  his  agony  Crumps  knew 
the  difference  between  himself  and  other  people,  and 
whenever  anything  hurt  him  or  happened  not  to  his  liking 
(which  was  very  often)  he  put  it  down  to  the  other  people. 
For  he  felt  sure  he  would  never  hurt  himself.  And  it 
made  such  a  difference  to  his  way  of  living  that  he  grew 
very  big  and  fat.  But  everybody  else  was  too  stupid  to 
know  why. 

Which  fable,  being  translated  into  the  decent  obscurity 
of  technical  language,  means  that  the  '  external '  world  is 

O  O       ' 

a  postulate,  made  to  extrude  inharmonious  elements  from 
consciousness,  de  jure  if  not  dc  facto,  in  order  to  avoid 
ascribing  them  to  the  nature  of  the  self.  Not  of  course, 
that  this  is  at  first  consciously  so  argued,  or  that  the 
segregation  of  the  two  poles  of  the  experience -process 
into  Self  and  Not -Self  need  be  conceived  as  arising 
otherwise  than  pari  passu.  But  we  may  conceive  that 
it  is  the  felt  nnsatisfactorincss  of  experience  which  sug- 
gests the  differentiation  of  Subject  and  Object  and  pos- 
tulation  of  the  latter  as  an  alien  '  Other,'  causing  the 
unsatisfactoriness. 

The  advantage  and  the  confirmation  are  obvious  as 
before.  And  if  any  one  will  not  believe  me,  let  him  go 
to  bed  and  dream  ;  he  will  find  that  there  too  he  projects 
his  dream  world  from  himself  and  ascribes  to  it  externality, 
just  because,  and  in  so  far  as,  he  is  baffled  by  an  experi- 
ence he  cannot  control. 

Contrariwise  it  may  be  conjectured  that  if  we  got  to 
heaven  (having  forgotten  our  whole  past)  and  found  that 
everything  took  exactly  the  course  desired,  no  sense  of 
the  '  otherness  '  of  our  experience  could  grow  up.  We 
should  either  suppose  that  we  were  almighty,  that  every- 
thing was  what  it  was  because  we  desired  it,  or  we  should 
cease  to  make  the  distinction  between  self  and  '  other,' 
!.('.  should  cease  to  be  self-conscious. 


106  F.  C.   S.   SCHILLER  n 

§36.  The  postulatory  aspect  of  other  important 
axioms  I  must  pass  over  lightly.  The  principle  of 
Contradiction  may  be  taken  as  simply  the  negative  side 
of  that  of  Identity  ;  in  demanding  that  A  shall  be  itself, 
we  demand  also  that  it  shall  be  capable  of  excluding 
whatever  threatens  its  identity.  Applied  to  propositions, 
it  demands  that  we  shall  be  enabled  to  avoid  the  jar  of 
incongruous  judgments  ;  but  the  volitional  nature  of  this 
demand  is  clearly  attested  by  the  frequency  with  which 
contradictions  are  de  facto  entertained  by  minds  which 
either  do  not  allow  them  to  come  into  actual  conflict,  or 
actually  enjoy  the  conflict.  The  Principle  of  Excluded 
Middle  similarly,  demands  that  it  shall  be  possible  to 
make  distinctions  sharp  and  disjunctions  complete,  in 
order  that  we  may  thereby  tame  the  continuous  flux  of 
experiences.  But  in  both  these  cases  (as  before)  our 
postulates  are  not  precise  transcriptions  of  fact  ;  they  are 
valid  because  they  work,  because  nature  can  be  made  to 
conform  to  them,  even  though  not  wholly.  They  derive 
therefore  their  real  meaning  and  true  validity  from  the 
fact  that  they  arc  applicable  to  experience,  that  incom- 
patibles  and  strict  alternatives  are  met  with,  that  contrary 
and  exclusive  attributes  are  found. 

§37-  I  may  here  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in 
scientific  research  the  postulatory  procedure  of  our  intel- 
ligence is  displayed  in  the  formation  of  Plypotlieses.  A 
hypothesis  is  a  suggestion  we  assume  and  (however 
tentatively)  act  on,  in  order  to  see  whether  it  will  work. 
It  always  proceeds  from  some  degree  of  psychological 
interest  ;  for  about  that  in  which  no  one  is  interested 
no  one  frames  even  the  most  fleeting  hypothesis.  A 
real  hypothesis  therefore  is  never  gratuitous  ;  it  is  pur- 
posive and  aims  at  the  explanation  of  some  subject. 
In  other  words  it  presupposes  a  desire  for  its  explana- 
tion and  is  framed  so  as  to  satisfy  that  desire.  The 
desire  for  an  answer  stimulates  us  to  put  the  question  to 
nature  and  nature  to  the  question.'  We  assume,  that  is, 
that  the  hypothesis  is  true,  because  it  would  be  satisfactory 


,,  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  107 

if  it  were,  and  then  we  try  and  see  whether  it  is  workable. 
If  it  is  not,  we  are  more  or  less  disappointed,  but  try 
again  ;  if  it  is,  it  rapidly  rises  to  be  the  theory  of  the 
phenomena  under  investigation,  and  may  under  favourable 
circumstances  attain  to  axiomatic  value  for  the  purposes 
of  the  inquiry.  A  good  example  of  this  is  afforded  by 
the  conception  of  Evolution.  This  originated  as  a  wild 
hypothesis  suggested  by  remote  analogies  ;  in  the  hands 
of  Darwin  it  became  a  theory  which  correlated  a  vast 
number  of  facts  ;  and  now  its  usefulness  is  so  universally 
recognised  that  it  is  accepted  without  discussion  as  a 
methodological  axiom  which  guides  research  in  all  the 
sciences  concerned  with  the  history  of  events. 

Now  the  fundamental  part  played  by  Hypothesis  in 
the  discovery  of  new  truth  is  being  more  and  more  plainly 
admitted  by  logicians.  Novelty  neither  arises  by  formal 
ratiocination  /;/  vacua,  as  an  apriorist  logic  seemed  to 
imply,  nor  yet  is  it  spontaneously  generated  by  the  mere 
congregation  of  facts,  as  logical  empiricism  strove  to 
maintain.  Facts  must  be  interpreted  by  intelligence,  but 
intelligence  always  operates  upon  the  basis  of  previously 
established  fact.  The  growth  of  knowledge  is  an  active 
assimilation  of  the  new  by  the  old.  Or  in  other  words, 
our  hypotheses  are  suggested  by,  and  start  from,  the  facts 
of  already  established  knowledge,  and  then  are  tested  by 
experience.  \Ye  confront  them  with  the  new  and  dubious 
facts  and  try  to  work  with  them  ;  and  upon  the  results  of 
this  trial  their  ultimate  fate  depends. 

Now  this  is  exactly  what  \vc  have  seen  to  be  our 
procedure  in  postulating.  \Yc  must  start  from  a  nsychical 
experience  which  suggests  the  postulate  (  =  the  previous 
fact  suggesting  the  hypothesis);  we  must  use  the  postulate 
(or  hypothesis)  as  a  means  to  an  end  which  appears 
desirable  ;  we  must  apply  the  postulate  to  experience  (a 
postulate  and  a  hypothesis  not  capable  (if  and  not  in- 
tended for  use  are  alike  invalid)  ;  and  the  final  validity  of 
the  postulate  'or  hypothesis)  depends  on  the  extent 
to  which  experience  can  be  rendered  congruous  with  it. 

May   wo   not   infer  that  the   use  of   Hypothesis   in  the 


io8  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  n 

logic  of  induction  confirms  our  assertion  of  the  postu- 
latory  origin  of  axioms?  Is  it  not  the  same  process 
which  now  yields  fresh  truth  which  we  supposed  to  have 
been  active  from  the  first  and  to  have  laid  the  foundations 
of  knowledge  ?  And  if  it  can  now  establish  the  validity 
of  the  truths  it  elicits,  why  should  it  not  first  of  all  have 
established  its  own  validity  by  establishing  the  validity  of 
our  fundamental  axioms  ? 

§  38.  The  principle  of  Causation  again  is  pretty 
plainly  a  postulate.  Causation,  as  James  says,1  is  an 
altar  to  an  unknown  god,  a  demand  for  something,  we 
know  not  what,  that  shall  enable  us  to  break  up  and 
to  control  the  given  course  of  events.  Now  this  demand 
may  be  satisfied  in  various  ways  at  different  times  and 
for  various  purposes,  in  a  manner  which  greatly  conduces 
to  the  vitality  of  controversy.  Historically,  our  original 
model  for  constructing  the  conception  of  cause  is  our 
immediate  experience  in  moving  our  limbs,  on  the  basis 
of  which  the  far-famed  '  necessary  connection  ' — which  at 
bottom  is  only  the  conceptual  translation  of  the  feeling 
of  '  having  to  ' — is  postulated.  This  primitive  conception 
of  causation,  however,  does  not  prove  adequate  for  all 
our  later  purposes,  especially  when,  as  is  usually  the 
case,  it  is  misunderstood  and  mismanaged.  So  we 
proceed  to  other  formulations  of  causality,  which,  however, 
are  no  less  clearly  dependent  on  our  experiences  and 
relative  to  our  purposes.  '  Cause  '  means  identity  when 
we  wish  to  construct  the  equations  of  physics  and 
mechanics  ;  it  means  regular  succession  when  we  are 
content  to  view  phenomena  from  without  ;  it  involves 
real  agency  when,  as  rarely  occurs  on  the  plane  of  the 
natural  sciences,-  we  desire  to  grasp  the  motive  forces 
of  phenomena  from  within.  Kvery  event  sliall  have  a 
cause — in  order  that  we  may  be  able  to  produce  it  or 
to  check  its  production.  Similarly  the  principle  of 

1   Principles  of  Psychology,  ii.  p.  671. 

-  The  possible  exception  is  biology,  in  which  the  Darwinian  im-thocl  [puts 
difficulties  into  the  way  of  regarding  organisms  as  automata  \\ho.sc  psychic  life 
may  lie  neglected.  For  if  psychic  activity  has  no  causal  efficacy,  why  wa^  it 
developed  in  a  world  controlled  by  the  law  of  struggle  for  existence? 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  109 

sufficient  Reason  demands  that  everything  shall  be 
capable  of  reasoned  connection  with  all  things — i.e.  we 
decline  to  live  among  disjecta  membra  of  a  universe. 

How  intensely  postulatory  these  axioms  are,  is  best 
seen  when  we  consider  what  is  too  often  neglected,  viz. 
the  limits  of  their  use.  The  unchanging  is  the  uncaused  ; 
no  reason  is  required  for  that  which  is  'self-evident.' 
Hut,  psychologically,  everything  is  self-evident  which 
provokes  no  question,  and  what  alone  would  be  absolutely 
self-evident  would  be  the  absolutely  satisfactory.  Thus 
the  only  complete  logical  truth  would  be  one  which  left 
no  room  for  further  questions  by  reason  of  its  absolute 
psychological  satisfactoriness.  And  conversely  nothing 
arouses  the  questioning  spirit  more  readily  than  the 
unsatisfactory.  As  has  well  been  said,  there  is  a  problem 
of  evil,  but  not  of  good.  It  is  precisely  in  so  far,  there- 
fore, as  experience  is  unsatisfactory  that  we  have  need 
of  a  principle  of  Sufficient  Reason.  It  has  to  be  left, 
with  so  much  of  the  panoply  of  practical  life,  at  the 
gates  of  Heaven. 

Comprehended  as  a  postulate,  therefore,  the  principle 
of  Sufficient  Reason  no  longer  exercises  an  unsympathis- 
ing  tyranny  of  pure  reason  over  reluctant  desires  ;  it  docs 
not  drive  us  to  seek  for  reasons  that  can  never  satisfy- 
without  end  ;  it  only  enables  us  to  assign  a  reason  when- 
ever we  will,  and  the  situation  seems  to  us  to  need  one. 

The  \vo-i?  of  the  aTropia  of  the  infinite  regress  of" 
causes  is  similar.  It  means  "  you  may  go  back  as  far 
as  ever  you  will  "  ;  it  does  not  mean  "  you  must  go  back, 
whether  you  will  or  not."  As  for  the  unchanging  (or  what 
is  taken  to  be  such)  the  causal  demand  has  no  power 
over  it  ;  it  has  no  cause  because  it  has  no  changes  with 
which  it  is  practically  necessary  to  grapple. 

§  39-  Upon  the  assumption  of  the  existence  of 
universal  laws  of  nature,  otherwise  known  as  the  Uni- 
formity of  Nature,  I  may  bestow  a  somewhat  fuller 
treatment,  for  reasons  which  can  perhaps  be  conjectured 
by  those  of  my  readers  who  have  been  engaged  in 
philosophic  instruction. 


no  F.  C.   S.  SCHILLER  „ 

To  primitive  man — we  may  suppose  ourselves  to  have 
got  down  to  semi-historical  times — nature  inevitably  still 
appears  very  chaotic  and  uncomfortable.  He  desires  an 
explanation  of  the  circumstances  that  oppress  him,  and 
is  prepared  to  clutch  at  any  straw.  He  partially  gratifies 
this  desire  by  projecting  as  the  '  causes '  of  such  happen- 
ings '  spirits '  naturally  and  necessarily  conceived  ex 
analogia  hoininis,  and  wild  and  malevolent  enough  to 
account  for  the  chaos  and  the  discomfort. 

But  after  all  the  chaos  is  not  complete  ;  it  is  inter- 
spersed with  gleams  of  uniformity.  Though  under  the 
promptings  of  misplaced  paternal  pride,  Helios  may 
conceivably  entrust  his  chariot  to  the  unpractised  hands 
of  Phaethon,  yet  within  the  memory  of  the  oldest  in- 
habitant the  sun  has  risen  and  set  with  regularity.  So 
too  a  number  of  organic  rhythms,  breathing,  cardiac 
pumping,  digestion,  hunger,  etc.,  have  by  this  time  reached 
a  regularity  which  can  hardly  be  overlooked.  There  is 
therefore  no  lack  of  psychical  experience  to  suggest 
regularity,  and  the  whole  force  of  association,  driving  the 
mind  into  habitual  courses,  disposes  it  to  expect  a  re- 
currence of  the  familiar. 

Perfect  regularity,  therefore,  can  be  postulated  ;  and 
the  temptation  to  do  so  is  great.  For  while  no  ameliora- 
tion of  man's  miserable  state  can  be  expected  from  the 
scientific  caution  that  dares  not  step  beyond  the  narrow 
bounds  of  precedent,  the  postulation  of  universal  laws  is 
fraught  with  infinite  possibilities  of  power.  If  nature  is 
regular,  it  can  be  trusted  ;  the  future  will  resemble  the 
past — at  least  enough  to  calculate  it — and  so  our  past 
experience  will  serve  as  guide  to  future  conduct.  There 
is,  moreover,  a  glorious  simplicity  about  calculating  the 
future  by  the  assumption  that  out  of  the  hurly-burly  of 
events  in  time  and  space  may  be  extracted  changeless 
formulas  whose  chaste  abstraction  soars  above  all  reference 
to  any  '  where '  or  '  when,'  and  thereby  renders  them 
blank  cheques  to  be  filled  up  at  our  pleasure  with  any 
figures  of  the  sort.  The  only  question  is — Will  Nature 
honour  the  cheque?  Audentcs  Nat  lira  Juvat — let  us  take 


u  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  in 

our  life  in  our  hands  and  try  !  If  we  fail,  our  blood  will 
be  on  our  own  heads  (or,  more  probably,  in  some  one 
else's  stomach),  but  though  we  fail,  we  are  in  no  worse 
case  than  those  who  dared  not  postulate  :  uncompre- 
hended  chaos  will  engulf  both  them  and  us.  If  we 
succeed,  we  have  the  clue  to  the  labyrinth.  Our  as- 
sumption, therefore,  is  at  least  a  methodological  necessity  ; 
it  may  turn  out  to  be  (or  be  near)  a  fundamental  fact 
in  nature.  We  stand  to  lose  nothing  and  to  gain  every- 
thing by  making  a  postulate  which  is  both  a  practical 
necessity  and  an  obvious  methodological  assumption, 
pointing  out  a  way  of  investigating  a  subject  with  which 
we  must  grapple,  if  we  will  to  carry  on  the  struggle  which 
is  life. 

Quid  plura  ?  Experience  has  shown  that  Nature 
condones  our  audacity,  and  step  by  step  our  assumption 
has  been  confirmed.  The  '  reign  of  law  '  has  turned  out 
to  be  as  absolute  as  ever  we  chose  to  make  it,  and  our 
assumption  has  worked  wherever  we  have  chosen  to  apply 
it.  Thus  the  speculations  to  which  we  were  first  driven 
in  the  hungry  teeth  of  savage  facts  by  the  slender  hope 
of  profit,  by  the  overpowering  fear  of  the  ruin  which 
stared  us  in  the  face,  have  slowly  ceased  to  be  speculative 
and  become  the  foundations  of  the  ordinary  everyday 
business  of  life.  Our  postulates  have  grown  respectable, 
and  are  now  entitled  axioms. 

^  40.  By  way  of  a  change  I  may  pass  to  consider  the 
function  of  the  postulate  in  a  very  different  region,  vi/.. 
the  construction  of  our  conceptions  of  Space  and  Time, 
which  since  Kant  it  has  become  difficult  not  to  treat  of  in 
analogous  fashion.  In  Kant,  of  course,  it  will  be 
remembered  that  they  arc  treated  as  twin  instances  of 
'pure'  ''intuition*  or  ''perception'  /V/AV  AnscJianiing]  giving 
rise  to  synthetic  judgments  a  priori  and  needing  to  bu 
systematically  distinguished  both  from  perceptions  ( Wahr- 
nehmung]  and  from  conceptions.  Nevertheless  it  will 
hardly  escape  an  unprejudiced  observer  that  a  '  pure- 
intuition  '  is  strangely  intermediate  between  a  perception 
and  a  conception. 


H2  F.  C.   S.   SCHILLER  u 

Of  this  curious  fact  the  explanation  which  I  shall 
venture  to  suggest  is  that  in  reality  the  reine  Ansckauung 
is  a  hermaphrodite,  both  perceptual  and  conceptual,  and 
that  Kant's  doctrine  on  the  subject  rests  on  a  systematic 
confounding  of  these  two  aspects.  He  argues  first  that 
Space  and  Time  cannot  be  perceptions  by  appealing  to 
their  conceptual  nature,  and  then  that  they  cannot  be 
conceptions  by  appealing  to  their  perceptual  character. 
So  he  has  to  construct  the  pure  intuition  as  a  third  thing 
which  they  may  safely  be,  seeing  that  they  can  be  neither 
percepts  nor  concepts.  But  he  has  overlooked  the 
possible  alternative  that,  as  so  often,  the  same  word  has 
to  do  duty  both  for  percept  and  concept,  and  that  by 
*  Space '  and  '  Time '  we  mean  now  the  one  and  now 
the  other.  This  ambiguity  having  escaped  his  notice,1 
the  result  is  that  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  Transcendental 
yEsthetic  is  pervaded  by  a  thorough-going  confusion  of 
psychology  and  logic. 

As  against  Kant,  I  shall  contend  that  the  nature  of 
Space  and  Time  remains  an  inexhaustible  source  of 
paradox  and  perplexity,  until  it  is  recognised  that  in  each 
case  what  has  happened  has  been  that  certain  psycho- 
logical data  have  been  made  the  basis  of  conceptual  con- 
structions by  a  course  of  methodological  postulation. 

§41.  In  the  case  of  Space  these  psychological  data 
consist  of  the  inherent  extension  or  spatiality  of  the 
perceptions  of  the  senses  of  sight  and  '  touch '  ( = 
pressure  +  muscular  contraction  +  articular  motion),  in 
consequence  whereof  we  can  no  more  perceive  the  un- 
extended  than  (despite  Kant)  we  can  perceive  empty 
Space.  These  perceptual  spaces  are  fused  by  the 
necessities  (needs)  of  practical  life,  which  force  us  to 
correlate  the  visual  and  tactile  images  of  objects,  into  a 
single  perceptual  or  real  space,  in  which  we  suppose 
ourselves  and  all  objective  realities  to  be  immersed. 
Thus  spatiality  is  a  given  attribute  of  the  real  world  as 
empirical  originally  as  its  colour  or  its  weight. 

1  The  simplest  and  most  flagrant  proof  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
Kant  docs  not  distinguish  between  the  problems  of  pure  and  applied  geometry. 


ii  AXIOMS  AS  POSTULATES  113 

But  this  real  space  is  very  far  from  being  identical 
with  the  space  of  the  geometers.  Geometrical  space  is 
a  conceptual  construction  founded  upon  space-perception 
and  aiming  at  the  simplest  system  of  calculating  the 
behaviour  of  bodies  in  real  space — a  matter  obviously  of 
the  greatest  practical  importance.  Hence  it  is  built  up 
by  a  series  of  postulates  into  an  ideal  structure  which 
at  no  point  coincides  ivith  our  perceptual  space  and  in  many 
respects  is  even  antithetical  to  it. 

Thus  it  is  commonly  stated  that  '  Space '  (conceptual) 
is  one,  empty,  homogeneous,  continuous,  infinite,  infinitely 
divisible,  identical,  and  invariable.  Now  every  one  of 
these  attributes  is  the  product  of  an  idealising  con- 
struction the  purpose  of  which  is  to  facilitate  the  inter- 
pretation and  manipulation  of  the  movements  of  bodies  in 
real  (physical  or  perceptual)  space,  which  stands  in  the 
sharpest  contrast  with  our  conceptual  construction  by 
being  many,  filled,  heterogeneous,  continuous  only  for  per- 
ception (if  atomism  be  true),  probably  finite,1  not  infinitely 
divisible  (atoms  again  !)  and  variable. 

And  this  is  how  and  why  we  construct  the  qualities 
of  our  ideal  geometrical  space.  We  make  it  one  and 
identical  by  correlating  our  sense-spaces,  by  fusing  the 
multitude  of  fields  of  vision  and  by  refusing  to  recognise 
the  spaces  of  our  dream  experiences,  in  order  that 
we  may  have  a  common  standard  to  which  we  can 
refer  all  our  space-perceptions.  We  make  it  empty 
and  invariable  by  abstracting  from  that  which  fills  it 
and  changes  in  it,  in  order  that  nothing  may  distract  us 
from  the  contemplation  of  its  pure  form.  We  make  it 
infinite  and  infinitely  divisible  by  carrying  actual  motions 
and  divisions  on  in  tlwuglit,  because  it  is  sweet  to  imagine- 
that  no  limit  exists  beyond  which  we  cannot  penetrate. 
We  make  it  continuous  by  idealising  an  (apparent) 
feature  of  perception,  in  order  to  confer  upon  it  a  mystic 
invulnerability.  And  lastly  we  make  it  homogeneous — 
structureless,  and  therefore  able  to  receive  any  and  every 

1    I  should   say    '  certainly '   myself,  but    I    prefer   to   understate   the   case.      Cf. 
Riddles  of  the  Sphinx }  ch.  ix.  §2-11. 

I 


114  F.   C.  S.   SCHILLER  n 

structure — in  order  to  relieve  our  minds  and  practical 
forecasts  of  the  utter  and  incalculable  heterogeneity 
which  renders  the  physical  qualities  of  real  space  different 
at  every  point.  And  last  of  all  we  make  perceptual  and 
conceptual  space  share  in  the  same  name,  because  for 
practical  purposes  we  want  to  identify  the  latter  with  the 
former  and  to  affirm  its  validity,  and  are  not  concerned  to 
save  philosophers  from  confusion. 

And  yet  when  the  philosopher  has  laboriously 
disentangled  the  varied  threads  that  are  woven  into  the 
texture  of  practical  life,  and  questions  us,  we  can  realise 
the  character  of  our  constructions.  We  can  see  full  well 
that  all  these  attributes  which  conceptual  space  postulates 
are  impossible  in  perceptual  space  ;  that  is  just  the  reason 
why  we  demand  them.  They  are  pure  abstractions  which 
idealise  the  actual  and  serve  the  purpose  of  enabling  us  to 
simplify  and  to  calculate  its  behaviour.  And  so  long  as 
our  assumptions  come  sufficiently  near  to  reality  for  our 
practical  purposes,  we  have  no  reason  to  emphasise  the 
distinction  between  the  two  senses  of  '  Space '  and 
indeed  are  interested  rather  in  slurring  over  the 
divergence  between  pure  and  applied  mathematics. 

§  42.  Our  assumption,  then,  of  geometrical  space  is 
true  because  it  works  and  in  so  far  as  it  works.  But 
does  it  work?  In  modern  times  ingenious  attempts  have 
been  made  to  contest  this  assumption,  and  to  reconstruct 
geometry  '  on  an  empirical  basis '  or  at  least,  to  construct 
alternatives  to  the  traditional  '  geometry  of  Euclid.' 
These  '  mctageometrical '  speculations  have  indulged  in 
many  crudities  and  extravagances  and  have  not  in  all 
cases  succeeded  in  freeing  themselves  from  the  very  con- 
fusions they  were  destined  to  dissipate.  But  they  have 
achieved  a  great  work  in  stirring  up  philosophers  out 
of  their  dogmatic  trust  in  '  the  certainty  of  mathe- 
matics,' and  forcing  them  to  realise  the  true  nature  of 
geometric  postulates. 

The  chief  philosophic  results  of  the  Non-Euclidian 
metageometry  are  briefly  these.  The  Euclidian  space- 
construction  rests  upon  '  the  postulate  of  Euclid  '  as  to 


ii  AXIOMS  AS  POSTULATES  115 

parallel  straight  lines,  which  Euclid  postulated  in  the 
innocency  of  his  heart,  because  he  wanted  it,  and  the 
indemonstrableness  of  which  had  ever  since  been  con- 
sidered a  disgrace  to  geometry.  The  simple  explanation 
of  this  fact  proffered  by  metageometry  is  that  conceptual 
space  is  a  generic  conception  capable  of  being  construed 
in  several  specific  ways,  and  that  Euclid's  postulate  (or  its 
equivalent,  the  equality  of  the  angles  of  the  triangle  to  two 
right  angles)  stated  the  specific  differentia  of  the  space 
Euclid  proceeded  to  construct.  But  out  of  the  same  data 
of  spatial  perception  other  systems  of  conceptual  geometry 
might  have  been  constructed,  whose  distinctive  postulates 
(as  to  the  number  of  '  parallels  '  to  be  drawn  through  a 
given  point  or  as  to  the  sum  of  the  angles  of  the  '  triangle  ') 
diverged  symmetrically  from  that  of  Euclid  and  would 
give  rise  to  coherent,  consistent  and  necessary  geometries, 
logically  on  a  par  with  Euclid's  and  differing  from  the 
latter  only  in  the  point  of  usefulness. 

For,  however  much  the  new  geometries  of  '  spherical ' 
and  '  pseudo-spherical '  space l  might  claim  to  rival  the 
logical  perfections  of  the  traditional  geometry,  they  have 
not  been  able  to  contest  its  practical  supremacy.  Their 
assumptions  are  much  less  simple,  and  their  consequences 
are  much  less  calculable  and  much  less  easily  applicable 
to  the  behaviour  of  objects  in  real  space.  It  seems  to  be 
possible  indeed  to  conceive  experiences  which  would  be 
most  easily  and  conveniently  interpreted  on  meta- 
geometrical  assumptions,  but  it  has  had  to  be  reluctantly 
acknowledged  that  so  far  no  such  experiences  have  fallen 
to  our  lot.  Euclidian  geometry  is  fully  competent  to  do 
the  work  we  demand  of  our  geometrical  constructions. 

But  that  does  not  make  it  more  real  than  its  rivals. 
They  are  all  three  conceptual  constructions  which  may  or 
may  not  be  valid  and  useful,  but  which  are  alike  in- 
competent to  claim  existence.  Hence  the  question  which 


n6  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  „ 

has  been  so  much  debated  in  metageometrical  controversy, 
viz.  '  whether  our  space  is  Euclidian  or  not '  is  strictly 
nonsense.  It  is  like  asking  whether  the  Sistine  Madonna 
is  the  mother  of  Christ.  To  ask  whether  our  space  is 
Euclidian  or  Non-Euclidian  is  like  disputing  whether  this 
assertion  may  be  more  truly  made  of  the  Sistine  Madonna 
or  of  the  Madonna  della  Sedia.  For  like  Raphael's  pictures 
all  our  conceptual  geometries  are  ideal  interpretations  of 
a  reality,  which  they  surpass  in  beauty  and  symmetry, 
but  upon  which  they  ultimately  depend,  and  it  would  be 
hard  to  adduce  more  eloquent  testimony  of  the  dependence 
of  these  theoretic  structures  on  practical  needs  than  the 
fact  that  from  the  first  the  conceptual  interpretation  of 
spatial  experiences  instinctively  adopted  by  mankind 
should  have  been  that  which  subsequent  analysis  has 
shown  to  be  the  simplest,  easiest,  and  most  manageable. 

§43.  For  illustrative  purposes  the  construction  of  the 
conception  of  Time  is  vastly  inferior  to  that  of  Space. 
The  conception  of  Time  involves  a  much  more  arduous 
effort  of  abstraction  and  its  lack  of  '  A  nscliaulichkeit '  is 
such  that  it  can  hardly  be  conceived,  and  certainly  cannot 
be  used,  without  an  appeal  to  spatial  metaphor.  Hence 
I  must  confine  myself  to  a  few  hints  showing  the  close 
analogy  of  the  method  of  its  conceptual  construction  with 
that  of  Space,  in  the  hope  that  they  may  prove  fywvavra 
crvveToccriv. 

Nothing  but  misunderstanding  of  the  nature  of  Time  is 
possible  unless  it  is  recognised  that  the  word  covers  three 
different  things  which  may  be  distinguished  as  subjective, 
objective,  and  conceptual  Time. 

Of  these  subjective  Time  (or  times,  since  every  centre 
of  experience  possesses  an  indefinite  plurality  of  his  own, 
if  we  do  not — as  for  practical  purposes  we  always  do 
— exclude  the  times  of  dreams,  etc.)  alone  can  claim  to  be 
a  matter  of  immediate  experience.  It  consists  in  the 
psychical  facts  of  succession  and  memory,  and  its  '  present 
time  '  ahvays  has  duration.  It  forms  the  psychological 
basis  of  all  time-constructions,  but  for  practical  purposes 
it  is  well  nigh  useless.  Our  subjective  time  estimates 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  117 

vary  too  enormously  for  us  to  live  by  them.  The  time 
which  to  the  philosopher  may  pass  all  too  rapidly  in 
metaphysical  discussion,  may  bore  the  schoolboy  to 
extinction  ;  and  conversely  the  philosopher  might  prefer 
extinction  to  listening  for  three  hours  a-day  to  a  discus- 
sion of  cricket  matches  or  to  a  Parliamentary  debate. 

Hence  for  the  purposes  of  what  Prof.  Ward  calls 
intersubjective  intercourse  it  is  necessary  to  devise  or 
somehow  to  advance  to  a  '  Time  '  which  shall  be  more 
objective.  Objective  Time  is  what  we  live  by,  and  what 
we  read  upon  the  faces  of  our  '  time-pieces '  (provided 
they  '  keep  time ' !)  correcting  thereby  our  subjective 
estimates  of  the  flow  of  successive  experience.  As  this 
example  shows,  objective  time  depends  upon  constructions 
(including  that  of  our  watches)  and  motions,  or  more 
precisely,  upon  the  synchronism  of  motions  and  the 
assumption  of  physical  constants.  But  it  remains  wholly 
relative,  and  this  enables  the  philosopher  to  deduce  some 
curious  and  interesting  consequences.1 

To  reach  absolute  '  Newtonian '  Time,  flowing  equably 
and  immutably  from  a  infinite  and  irrevocable  Past, 
through  a  '  punctual '  (i.e.  durationless  and  infinitely 
divisible)  and  yet  exclusively  real  Present,  to  an  infinite 
Future,  conceptual  postulation  has  to  be  called  into  play. 
The  absoluteness  and  equable  flow  are  demands  for  a 
constancy  which  objective  Time  will  not  show  ;  the  con- 
struction of  Past,  Present,  and  Future  results  from  the 
need  to  arrange  the  facts  of  memory  ;  the  infinity  and 
infinite  divisibility,  as  in  the  case  of  space,  result  from  a 
thinking  away  of  the  contents  and  limits  of  the  actual 
experience.  But  on  the  whole  the  usefulness  of  conceptual 
Time  seems  very  limited,  and  is  counterbalanced  by 
troublesome  antinomies  as  soon  as  it  is  separated  from 
the  experience  it  is  intended  to  interpret.' 

§  44.  I  pass  over  the  axiomatic  postulates  of  arithmetic, 
the  methodological  postulates  which  are  found  in  every 


n8  F.  C.  S.   SCHILLER  ,i 

science  and  the  metaphysical  postulates  involved  in  the 
conception  of  substance  :  the  first,  because  I  may  refer  to 
Prof.  James's  account  of  them  in  the  Principles  of 
Psychology  (ii.  p.  653  foil.)  and  have  no  desire  to  'outdo 
the  good  man  '  ;  the  second,  because  of  their  number  and 
the  amount  of  special  knowledge  which  it  requires  to 
expound  and  appreciate  them  ;  the  third,  because  in  all 
its  traditional  forms  I  am  sceptical  as  to  the  usefulness, 
and  therefore  as  to  the  validity,  of  the  conception  of 
substance,  and  cannot  stay  to  propound  measures  for  its 
reform.1 

§45-  On  the  other  hand  too  much  may  be  gleaned 
from  the  consideration  of  postulates  which  are  not  yet 
acknowledged  to  be  axiomatic,  nor  indeed  universally 
to  be  valid,  for  us  to  pass  them  over.  I  may  mention 
in  the  first  instance  the  assumption  of  Teleology.  - 

Teleology  in  one  sense  is  an  indubitable  postulate 
of  the  highest  significance.  In  the  interpretation  of 
nature,  we  must  always  assume  a  certain  conformity 
between  nature  and  human  nature,  in  default  of  which 
the  latter  cannot  understand  the  former.  Thus  human 
nature  is  the  sole  key  to  nature  which  we  possess,  and 
if  it  will  not  unlock  the  arcana,  we  must  resign  ourselves 
to  sceptical  despair.  If,  therefore,  every  attempt  to  know 
rests  on  the  fundamental  methodological  postulate  that 
the  world  is  knowable,  we  must  also  postulate  that  it 
can  be  interpreted  ex  analogia  iiominis  and  anthropo- 
morphically.3  And  moreover  tJie  closer  the  correspond- 

1  The  outcome  of  orthodox  philosophic  criticism  of  the  substance-concept  at 
present   seems    to   be  that    substantiality   cannot  be   legitimately  affirmed  of  the 
psychical  and  must  be  reserved  for  the  physical.      Meanwhile  the  substantiality  of 
the  ultimate  counters  of  physical  speculation  is  becoming  more  and  more  shadowy, 
and  its  assumption  more  and  more  superfluous.      The  situation  seems  to  me  some- 
what absurd.      Hut  quefaire  so  long  as  those  concerned  prefer  the  fog  and  decline 
to  clear  the  atmosphere  ?     Cf.  however  i>iy  art.   on   the   Conception  of  'Kvipyfia. 
(Mind,  N.S.,  Xo.  36). 

2  By  Teleology  I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  the  contemplation  of  parts  in  their 
relation  to  a  whole,  but  what  the  word — until  (by  way  of  compromising  with  its 
enemies)  it  was  attenuated  to  a  futile  shadow  of  itself — always  meant,   vi/.   the 
assertion  of  purposive  intelligence  as  an  agency  in  the  world. 

3  Cf.    Kiddles  of  the   Sphinx,   ch.    v.    jj  6.       As  Dr.  Julius  Schultz  well  says 
in   his    stimulating    book,   Die  Psychologic  der  Axiome  (p.    99  and   passim},    to 
think  is  to  anthropomorphise.      Intellectualists  will  perhaps  admit   this  eventually 
— shortly  before  their  extinction  ! 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  119 

ence  between  nature  and  human  nature  can  be  shown 
to  be,  the  more  knowable  will  the  world  be,  and  the  more 
we  shall  feel  at  home  in  it.  Hence,  it  is  a  methodological 
demand  to  anthropomorphise  the  world  as  far  as  ever 
we  can. 

Now  human  nature,  in  so  far  as  it  is  '  rational,'  is 
teleological — it  pursues  ends  which  appear  to  it  reasonable 
and  desirable,  and  tends  to  become  more  and  more 
systematically  purposive  the  more  highly  it  develops. 
Of  course,  therefore,  we  must  try  to  find  this  action  for 
the  sake  of  ends  throughout  nature,  or  if  we  fail,  to  find 
the  most  efficient  approximation  to  it  we  can.  Now, 
with  regard  to  the  actions  of  our  fellowmen,  and  indeed 
in  the  case  of  all  animal  life,  the  full  ascription  of 
teleology  is  not  only  practicable  but  practically  unavoid- 
able. But  with  regard  to  the  other  departments  of 
nature,  and  indeed  nature  as  a  whole,  modern  science 
has  persuaded  itself  that  teleological  explanations  are 
at  present  unworkable  and  therefore  '  unscientific.'  The 
ideal  of  scientific  explanation  is  '  mechanical,'  and  this 
is  taken  to  be  anti-teleological. 

So  far,  therefore,  teleology  remains  a  postulate,  which 
it  is  not  possible  to  carry  through,  and  to  render  an 
axiom  of  biological  or  physical  research.  The  situation 
is  deplorable,  but  not  desperate.  For,  in  the  first  place, 
the  antiteleological  bias  of  natural  science  is  largely  due 
to  the  perverse  use  professing  teleologists  have  made  of 
their  postulate.  Instead  of  treating  it  as  a  method 
whereby  to  understand  the  complex  relations  of  reality, 
they  have  made  it  into  an  dpybs  \oyo^  which  shut  off 
all  further  possibilities  of  investigation,  by  ascribing 
everything  to  a  '  divine  purpose,'  and  then,  in  order  to 
shirk  the  laborious  task  of  tracing  the  working  of  the 
divine  intelligence  in  the  world,  adding  the  suicidal  '  rider  ' 
that  the  divine  purpose  was  inscrutable.  Teleological 
explanation  was  thus  rendered  impossible,  while  the 
mechanical  assumptions  were  found  to  be  capable  of 
working  out  into  valuable  results,  it  is  true  of  a  lower 
order  of  intelligibility.  In  the  second  place,  although 


120  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  n 

the  Ideological  postulate  is  not  useful  in  the  present 
stage  of  scientific  development,  that  is  not  to  say  that 
it  cannot  be  rendered  useful  hereafter.  It  is  open  to 
any  one  to  adopt  the  method,  and  if  he  can  show 
valuable  results  attained  thereby,  he  will  not  find  true 
scientists  slow  to  recognise  its  validity.  Hitherto  indeed 
the  method  has  failed,  not  so  much  because  men  could 
not  use  it,  as  because  they  would  not,  or  at  least  would 
not  use  it  properly.  If,  at  any  time,  they  should  want 
to  use  it,  they  would  probably  find  that  it  was  useful 
far  beyond  the  limits  of  its  present  application. 

§  46.  But  even  these  limits  are  in  reality  far  wider  than 
is  ordinarily  recognised.  In  another  way  from  that  which 
we  have  just  been  considering  the  validity  of  teleology 
is  raised  above  the  very  possibility  of  question.  What 
are  these  mechanical  explanations  which  have  so  success- 
fully preoccupied  the  fertile  fields  of  science  ?  They  are 
devices  of  our  own,  methods  which  we  have  tried  and 
found  workable,  ideals  conceived  by  our  intelligence  to 
which  we  are  coaxing  reality  to  approximate  ;  they  are 
pervaded  by  human  purposiveness  through  and  through, 
and  prove  that,  so  far  as  we  have  tried,  nature  conforms 
to  our  thoughts  and  desires,  and  is  anthropomorpJiic  enough 
to  be  mecJianical.  In  being  mechanical  it  plays  into  our 
hands,  as  James  says,  and  confesses  itself  to  be  intelligible 
and  teleological  to  that  extent  at  least.  There  is  no 
intelligibility  without  conformity  with  human  nature,  and 
human  nature  is  teleological.  A  mechanically  law-abiding 
universe  does  conform  to  some  of  our  demands  and  is  so 
far  intelligible.  We  must  assume,  therefore,  that  this 
conformity  will  extend  further,  that,  if  we  try  sincerely 
and  pertinaciously  and  ingeniously  enough,  we  can  force 
nature  to  reveal  itself  as  wholly  conformable  to  our  nature 
and  our  demands.  Nothing  less  than  that  will  content 
us,  and  nothing  less  than  that  need  be  assumed.  Nay, 
any  attempt  to  stop  short  at  something  less,  e.g.  at  a 
world  which  was  mechanically  intelligible,  or  even  intel- 
lectually intelligible,  but  ignored  our  moral  and  emotional 
demands,  would  seem  to  jeopardise  all  that  the  pertinacity 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  121 

of  our  sciences  has  achieved.  A  world  which  can  be  '  fully 
explained,'  but  only  in  mechanical  or  barely  intellectual 
terms,  is  not  fully  intelligible,  is  not  fully  explained.  Nay, 
at  bottom  it  involves  the  most  abysmal  unintelligibility  of 
all,  to  my  thinking.  It  lures  us  into  thinking  it  rational, 
only  to  check  our  progress  by  insuperable  barriers  later 
on.  Compared  with  the  tantalising  torment  of  this 
supposition,  and  the  derisive  doubt  it  reflects  on  all  our 
earlier  '  successes,'  a  scepticism  which  consistently  assumes 
a  fundamental  incommensurability  of  man  and  his  ex- 
perience, and  a  consequent  unknowableness  of  the  world, 
and  patiently  endures  their  practical  consequences,  would 
seem  more  tolerable  and  dignified. 

We  must,  therefore,  assume  all  or  nothing — we  have 
some  (unless  we  choose  to  lose  it  by  lack  of  faith)  ;  we 
must  hope  and  strive  for  all.  Shall  we  then,  in  face  of 
all  the  successes  of  our  sciences,  infer  that  all  intelligence 
(our  own  included)  is  a  fond  delusion  for  which  there  is 
no  room  vis-d-vis  of  true  reality  ?  O  miscras  hominum 
inentes,  o  pcctora  cceca  !  Can  it  really  be  that  they  cannot 
see  that  every  triumph  of  the  most  rabidly  '  anti- 
teleological '  mechanical  method  is,  from  the  '  synoptic  ' 
standpoint  of  philosophy,  so  much  more  welcome  testimony 
to  the  power  of  the  human  mind  and  will  to  grapple 
with  its  experience,  and  confirms  the  validity  of  its 
teleological  assumptions  ?  At  all  events  such  blindness, 
whether  it  be  involuntary  or  voluntary,  is  not  possible  to 
one  who  has  grasped  the  truth  that  theoretic  truths  are 
the  children  of  postulation.  His  eyes  are  opened,  and 
the  question  whether  teleology  is  valid  is  finally  closed. 
For  is  not  his  whole  theory  one  continuous  and  over- 
whelming illustration  of  the  doctrine  that  without  purposive 
activity  there  would  be  no  knowledge,  no  order,  no  rational 
experience,  nothing  to  explain,  and  no  means  of  explain- 
ing anything?  What,  in  a  word,  is  his  whole  account  of 
mental  organisation  but  a  demonstration  of  the  teleology 
of  axioms  ? 

§  47.  I  must  pass  over  with  a  mere  mention  sundry- 
postulates  of  a  religious  character,  whose  position  has 


122  F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER  n 

been  rendered  still  more  dubious  than  that  of  teleology  by 
the  prevailing  misconceptions  as  to  the  validity  of  postu- 
lation.  An  intelligent  reader  will  perhaps  gather  from 
what  has  been  said  in  the  last  section  why  the  Personality 
of  God  should  be  esteemed  an  indispensable  postulate. 
The  fact  again  that  the  goodness  of  God  is  a  methodo- 
logical postulate J  will  be  found  to  throw  much  light  on 
the  rationality  of  all  religions,  just  as  the  pitiably  in- 
adequate way  in  which  it  has  actually  been  carried  out 
illustrates  the  irrationality  which  unfortunately  ever 
clings  even  to  the  best  of  them. 

Is  Immortality  a  postulate,  as  Kant  maintained  ?  If 
so,  in  what  sense  and  to  what  extent  ?  These  are 
questions  well  worthy  of  being  pondered,  not  without  a 
cautious  discrimination  between  immortality  in  Heaven 
and  in  Hell.  But  at  present  we  are  too  profoundly 
ignorant  as  to  what  men  actually  desire  in  the  matter, 
and  why,  and  how,  to  decide  what  they  ought  to  desire. 
Hence,  pending  the  publication  of  the  results  of  a 
statistical  inquiry  undertaken  by  the  American  Branch  of 
Society  for  Psychical  Research,  which  I  hope  will 
yield  copious  and  valuable  data,  profitable  discussion  of 
these  questions  must  be  postponed.2 


VII 

§  48.  Having  in  the  above  sections  exemplified  the 
method  by  which  the  postulatory  nature  of  representative 
axioms  may  be  displayed,  I  may  proceed  to  round  off  my 
essay  with  some  concluding  reflections. 

I    will   begin   with  a  couple  of  cautions.      In   the   first 

1  Even  devil-worshippers  must  assume  that  their  god  is  susceptible  to  flattery  and 
capable  of  being  propitiated,  i.e.  K  good  to  them  ;  a  thorough  fiend  would  paralyse 
all  religious  activity.  As  for  a  non-moral  'deity,'  it  cannot  be  worshipped  and 
may  with  impunity  be  ignored.  Wherefore,  q.e.d. 

-  It  seems  probable  that  the  result  will  be  to  show  that  though  immortality 
may  be  (logically)  a  postulate  it  is  not  (psychologically)  postulated,  or  at  least 
not  postulated  with  scientific  intent.  If  so  the  anomalous  condition  of  the  doctrine 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  great  majority  do  not  desire  to  have  a  future  life  proved, 
do  not  attempt  to  prove  it,  and  thwart  the  few  who  do  attempt  this.  Hence  the 
state  of  our  knowledge  remains  commensurate  with  that  of  our  desire,  and  the 
'  postulate '  remains  a  mere  postulate  without  developing  into  a  source  of 
knowledge. 


ii  AXIOMS  AS  POSTULATES  123 

place  in  default  of  a  knowledge  of  the  historical  details  of 
the  psychological  development  of  our  earlier  postulates,  I 
have  had  to  content  myself  with  schematic  derivations  in 
logical  order.  The  real  procedure  was  probably  far  more 
complicated,  casual,  and  gradual,  and  far  less  conscious 
than  I  have  represented  it.  In  fact  I  see  little  reason  to 
suppose  that  any  of  the  makers  of  the  early  postulates 
had  any  consciousness  of  the  logical  import  of  their 
procedure  or  knew  why  they  made  them.  We  know  this 
often  to  have  been  the  case,  that,  e.g.  the  logical  and 
geometrical  postulates  were  used  long  before  they  were 
reflected  on  scientifically,  and  still  longer  before  they  were 
understood.  But  this  is  no  real  difficulty,  and  we  can 
study  the  psychological  processes  involved  by  observing 
any  one  who  is  persuading  himself  of  the  truth  of  what  he 
would  like  and  would  find  it  convenient  to  believe,  e.g. 
that  he  loves  where  money  is,  or  that  being  in  love  his 
mistress  is  perfection.  It  is  only  for  the  cold-blooded 
analysis  of  an  unconcerned  observer  that  logical  chasms 
yawn  in  such  processes  ;  the  agent  himself  in  the  heat  of 
action  is  wafted  over  them  unawares  by  the  impetuous 
flow  of  instinctive  feeling,  and  would  doubtless  reject  our 
analysis  of  his  motives  with  the  sincerest  indignation. 

For  to  an  unreflective  and  uncritical  mind  whatever 
looks  likely  to  gratify  desire  presents  itself  with  an 
inevitableness  and  aesthetic  self-evidence  which  precludes 
all  doubt.  And  we  are  all  unreflective  and  uncritical 
enough  to  accept  the  self-evidence  also  of  the  devices  we 
denominate  '  truth,'  until  at  least  the  doubt  as  to  their 
real  character  has  been  forced  upon  us. 

It  should  be  clear  from  this  how  I  should  conceive  the 
logical  question  with  regard  to  postulation  to  be  related  to 
the  psychological,  and  how  I  should  reply  to  an  objector 
who  was  willing  to  grant  that  postulation  is  the  method 
whereby  we  come  by  our  axioms  psychologically,  but 
denied  that  this  affected  the  logical  problem  of  their 
justification. 

To  this  we  should  reply  that  we  also  distinguish 
between  the  motives  which  assume  and  the  trials  which 


I24  F.  C.   S.   SCHILLER  u 

justify  an  axiom.  A  postulate  does  not  become 
axiomatic  until  it  has  been  found  to  be  workable  and  in 
proportion  as  it  is  so.  But  we  deny  that  the  two 
questions  can  be  separated  and  logic  be  cut  adrift  from 
psychology  and  dissipated  in  the  ether  of  the  unintelligible. 
Psychological  processes  are  the  vehicles  of  truth,  and 
logical  value  must  be  found  in  psychological  fact  or 
nowhere.  Before  a  principle  can  have  its  logical  validity 
determined,  it  must  be  tried  ;  and  it  can  be  tried  only  if 
some  one  can  be  induced  to  postulate  it.  Logical 
possibilities  (or  even  '  necessities  ')  are  nothing  until  they 
have  somehow  become  psychologically  actual  and  active. 
A  '  truth  '  which  no  one  ever  conceives  is  nothing.  It  is 
certainly  no  truth. 

Hence  it  is  impossible  to  treat  the  logical  question  of 
axioms  without  reference  to  the  actual  processes  whereby 
they  are  established,  and  their  actual  functioning  in  minds 
which  entertain  the  logical  in  close  connection  with  their 
other  ideals.  If  therefore  it  is  by  postulation  that  we  do 
know,  we  cannot  but  base  on  postulation  our  theory  of 
how  we  ought  to  know.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  ideals  of 
the  normative  science  must  be  developed  out  of  the  facts 
of  the  descriptive  science.  Regarded  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  higher  purpose  of  the  former,1  the 
psychological  processes  must  be  purged  of  the  hesitations, 
inconsistencies  and  irrelevancies  which  clog  them  in  their 
actual  occurrence,  and  when  this  evaluation  is  completed,  it 
yields  the  norms  which  ougJit  to  be,  but  as  yet  are  only  in  part. 
Thus  (as  must  indeed  have  become  obvious  to  a  careful 
reader  of  the  preceding  sections)  the  logical  account  of 
Postulation  is  an  idealised  version  of  the  course  of  actual 
postulating.  But  for  this  very  reason  it  has  a  guiding 
power  over  the  actual  processes,  which  the  fancy  processes 
of  an  abstracted  logic,  legislating  vainly  in  the  void,  can 
never  claim. 

§  49.  Secondly,  I  am  of  course  aware  that  in  applying 
to  the  problem  of  knowledge  the  method  of  origins  I  am 
debarred  in  one  sense  from  giving  a  complete  explanation. 

1   Which  of  course  is  itself  a  psychological  fact. 


i,  AXIOMS  AS  POSTULATES  125 

For  granting  that  I  have  succeeded  in  connecting  our 
cognitive  apparatus  with  the  earlier  functions  of  conscious- 
ness by  means  of  the  principle  of  the  postulate,  it  is  open 
to  any  one  to  demand  the  reason  why  we  should  be 
capable  of  feeling  and  volition,  and  so  gradually  to  drive 
me  back  into  the  formless,  mindless,  undifferentiated  void 
which  is  conceived  to  precede  all  evolution.  That  this 
difficulty  should  occur  in  all  theories  is  no  answer,  and  a 
poor  consolation. 

The  true  answer  is  that  the  method  of  origins  is  of 
relative  validity  and  that  in  the  end  we  never  find  out 
'  what  a  thing  really  is '  by  asking  '  what  it  was  in  the 
beginning.'  Nor  does  the  true  value  of  the  method 
reside  in  the  (illusory)  starting-point  to  which  it  goes 
back,  but  in  the  knowledge  it  acquires  on  the  way.  The 
true  nature  of  a  thing  is  to  be  found  in  its  validity — 
which,  however,  must  be  connected  rather  than  contrasted 
with  its  origin.  '  What  a  thing  really  is  '  appears  from 
what  it  does,  and  so  we  must  study  its  whole  career.  We 
study  its  past  to  forecast  its  future,  and  to  find  out  what 
it  is  really  '  driving  at.'  Any  complete  explanation, 
therefore,  is  by  final  causes,  and  implies  a  knowledge  of 
ends  and  aims  which  we  can  often  only  imperfectly 
detect. 

All  this  of  course  applies  also  to  the  case  of  knowledge. 
Knowledge  cannot  be  derived  out  of  something  other  and 
more  primitive  ;  even  if  the  feat  were  feasible,  it  would 
only  explain  ignotum  per  ignotius.  Hence  to  analyse  it 
into  '  elements '  and  '  primary  forms '  is  in  a  manner 
illusory  ;  so  long  as  its  structure  is  not  completed,  the 
final  significance  of  its  forms  cannot  be  clearly  mirrored 
in  its  structure.  Ultimately,  therefore,  it  is  impossible  to 
explain  the  higher  by  the  lower,  the  living  organism  of 
growing  truth  by  its  dissected  members.  If  we  desire 
completeness,  we  must  look  not  to  the  v\ij,  as  in  different 
ways  our  theories  of  knowledge  all  have  clone,1  but  to  the 


126  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  „ 

re'A.09.  And  to  claim  definitive  finality  for  any  present 
theory  of  knowledge  would  seem  to  crave  no  slight  equip- 
ment with  the  panoply  of  ignorance. 

But  is  the  end  in  sight  ?  Can  we  infer  from  what 
knowledge  has  been,  and  now  is,  what  it  should  be,  and 
God  willing,  will  be  ?  We  can  of  course  (as  explained 
in  the  last  section)  construct,  to  some  extent,  the  ideal  on 
the  basis  of  our  knowledge  of  the  actual.  But  though 
therefore  an  answer  is  not  perhaps  wholly  inconceivable 
even  to  this  question,  an  exploration  of  the  seventh  Heaven 
is  hardly  germane  to  the  present  inquiry. 

§  50.  I  cannot  more  fitly  close  this  rough  sketch  of  a 
great  subject  than  by  adding  a  few  words  as  to  the  prob- 
able effect  on  philosophy  of  a  more  general  adoption  of  the 
principle  I  have  advocated.  It  may,  I  think,  reasonably 
be  anticipated  that  it  will  have  a  reviving  and  most  in- 
vigorating influence  upon  an  invaluable  constituent  of 
human  culture  which  too  often  has  been  betrayed  by  the 
professing  champions  who  were  bound  and  paid  to  sustain 
its  banner  against  the  attacks  of  fools  and  Philistines. 
Philosophy  is  once  again,  as  so  often  in  its  history,  '  the 
sick  man'  among  the  sciences:  it  has  suffered  unspeakable 
things  at  the  hands  of  a  multitude  of  its  doctors,  whose 
chief  idea  of  a  proper  regimen  for  the  philosophic  spirit 
has  been  to  starve  it  upon  a  lowering  diet  of  logic-chopped 
conundrums,  to  cut  it  off  from  all  communication  with 
real  life  and  action,  to  seclude  it  in  arid  and  inaccessible 
wastes  whence  there  is  an  easy  descent  to  the  House  of 
Hades,  and  by  constant  blood-letting  to  thrust  it  down 
into  the  gloomy  limbo  where  a  pallid  horde  of  useless,  half- 
hypostasised  abstractions  vainly  essays  to  mimic  the  wealth 
and  variety,  the  strength  and  beauty  of  reality.  That 
philosophy  has  not  perished  out  of  the  land  under  such 
treatment  testifies  with  no  uncertain  voice  to  its  divine 
destiny  and  to  the  glow  of  ambrosial  fire  that  courses 
in  its  veins.  We  may  expect,  therefore,  a  marvellous 

of  the  <7  priori  necessities  of  thought  in  tho  one  case,  and  the  crude  mass  of 
chaotic  experiences  in  the  other.  Hut  from  the  standpoint  of  the  rc'Xo?  what 
knowledge  has  become  is  truer,  because  more  valuable,  than  what  it  has  become 
out  of. 


ii  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  127 

recovery  once  it  has  by  the  might  of  postulation  shaken  off 
the  twofold  curse  under  which  it  has  for  so  long  laboured, 
the  curse  of  intellectualism  and  the  curse  of  a  will  that  does 
not  know  itself,  and  in  its  self-diremption  turns  against 
itself,  to  postulate  the  conflicting  and  incongruous. 

Intellectualism,  to  which  it  has  already  several  times 
been  necessary  to  refer  in  unappreciative  terms,  is 
naturally  the  besetting  sin  of  philosophers,  and  a  per- 
ennial idol  of  the  academic  theatre.  Intellect  being 
the  distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  philosopher  and 
the  indispensable  means  of  holding  a  mirror  up  to 
nature,  he  exhibits  a  constant  tendency  to  substitute 
the  part  for  the  whole  and  to  exalt  it  into  the  sole  and 
only  true  reality.  His  infatuation  is  such  that  it  seems 
to  him  to  matter  not  one  whit,  that  it  proves  patently 
and  pitiably  unequal  to  its  role ;  that  to  maintain  itself 
in  the  false  position  into  which  it  has  been  forced,  it 
has  to  devastate  reality  and  call  it  truth  ;  that  it  has 
to  pervert  the  empty  schemata  of  '  universal '  abstractions 
from  their  legitimate  use  as  means  to  classification,  and 
erecting  them  into  ends,  to  substitute  them  for  the  living 
reals  ;  that  even  when  it  has  been  permitted  to  cut  and 
carve  the  Real  at  its  pleasure,  and  to  impose  on  us  two- 
dimensional  images  in  lieu  of  the  solid  fact,  it  has  in  the 
end  to  confess  that  the  details  and  individuality  of  the 
Real  elude  its  grasp. 

But  when,  for  the  sake  of  bolstering  up  an  inhuman 
and  incompetent,  and  impracticable  intellectualism,  an 
attempt  is  made  to  cut  down  the  scope  of  philosophy 
to  an  attenuated  shred  which  intellectualism  can  con- 
template without  dismay,  when  we  are  required  to  believe 
that  philosophy  need  aim  only  at  understanding,1  and 
at  understanding  in  general,  without  cither  condescending 
to  the  particular,  or  considering  that  which  '  passeth  all 
understanding,'  it  is  high  time  to  protest.  It  is  the 
individual  concrete  experience  in  all  its  fulness  which 


128  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  „ 

every  man  worthy  of  the  name  wants  philosophy  to 
interpret  for  him  ;  and  a  philosophy  which  fails  to  do 
this  is  for  him  false.  Intellectualism  is  necessarily  false 
because  it  only  operates  with  conceptions,  whose  purpose 
and  essential  construction  incapacitate  them  from  account- 
ing for  the  individuality  from  which  they  have  abstracted. 
It  reduces  the  philosopher  to  an  impotent  spectator  of 
a  supra-rational  universe  which  he  can  interpret  only  as 
irrational. 

And  in  this  case  the  on -looker  sees  nothing  of  the 
game,  because  he  sees  a  game  which  he  does  not  under- 
stand, and  cannot  understand  unless  he  has  tried  to  play 
it.  It  is  a  false  abstraction  of  intellectualism  to  divorce 
thinking  from  doing,  and  to  imagine  that  we  can  think 
the  world  truly  without  acting  in  it  rightly.  But  in  reality 
this  is  quite  impossible.  '  Pure '  thought  which  is  not 
tested  by  action  and  correlated  with  experience,  means 
nothing,  and  in  the  end  turns  out  mere  pseudo-thought. 
Genuine  thinking  must  issue  from  and  guide  action, 
must  remain  immanent  in  the  life  in  which  it  moves 
and  has  its  being.  Action,  conversely,  must  not  be 
opposed  to  thought,  nor  supposed  to  be  effective  without 
thought  ;  it  needs  thought,  and  elaborates  it ;  it  is  not 
a  "  red  mist  of  doing  "  which  obscures  the  truth,  but  the 
radiance  which  illumes  it. 

In  Lebensfluten,  im  Thatensturm, 

Wallt  es  auf  und  ab  .   .   . 

So  schafft  es  am  sausenden  Webstuhl  der  Zeit 

Und  wirket  der  Menschheit  lebendiges  Kleid. 

Faust,  Act  i.  Scene  i  (with  the 
necessary  variations). 

To  trace,  therefore,  to  their  root  in  the  postulations  of 
personal  need  the  arrogant  pretensions  of  '  pure  thought,' 
and  thus  to  get  rid  of  the  haunting  shadow  of  intel- 
lectualism, reopens  the  way  to  a  philosophy  which  re- 
mains in  touch  with  life,  and  strenuously  participates  in 
the  solution  of  its  problems. 

^  51.  Such  practical  success  in  its  completeness  is, 
of  course,  a  sufficiently  remote  contingency ;  but  there 


u  AXIOMS   AS   POSTULATES  129 

is  a  further  reason  for  the  expectation  that  it  will  be 
greatly  facilitated  by  the  proof  of  the  volitional  foundations 
of  our  intelligence.  For  it  disposes  also  of  another 
serious  and  inveterate  source  of  philosophic  confusion, 
and  constant  stimulus  to  philosophic  despair,  viz.  the 
notion  that  philosophic  difficulties  arise  out  of  the 
incompetence  of  the  reason.  Now  there  is  some  foundation 
for  this  notion.  A  certain  class  of  philosophic  problems, 
to  wit,  those  which  have  no  earthly  concern  with  practical 
life  (like,  e.g.  the  Absolute  and  its  habits),  and  so  cannot 
be  tested  by  action,  are  really  ultra  vires  of  an  intelligence 
which  was  devised  and  developed  to  harmonise  experience. 
But  then  we  have  all  along  contended  that  such  problems 
are  not  real  problems  at  all,  but  miasmatic  exhalations 
of  a  false  intellectualism,  which  has  misconstrued  its  own 
nature  and  powers.  Such  problems  arc  insoluble,  because 
in  the  end  they  are  unmeaning.  But  there  arc  other 
cases  where  the  intellect  seems  to  fail  us  in  questions 
of  the  most  pressing  practical  importance.  Hence  so 
long  as  the  dogma  of  the  primacy  of  the  intellect  prevails, 
it  seems  hard  to  acquit  the  human  reason  of  the 
charge  of  being  infected  with  fundamental  disabilities 
and  insoluble  antinomies.  For  is  it  not  easy  to  draw 
up  a  formidable  array  of  incompatible  assertions  and  to 
provide  each  with  a  'proof  in  logically  unexceptionable 
terms  ? 

But  of  these  '  difficulties '  it  now  seems  possible  to 
propound  a  profounder  explanation.  The  real  root  of 
the  trouble  may  be  found  to  lie  in  the  will  rather 
than  in  the  reason,  whose  innocent  amiability  is  always 
ready  to  provide  an  intellectual  formulation  for  the  most 
discordant  aims  and  the  most  obscure  desires.  Let  us, 
therefore,  insist  that  before  the  reason  is  condemned 
untried,  and  philosophy  is  finally  reduced  to  a  trivial 
game  which  may  amuse  but  can  never  really  satisfy,  it 
is  necessary  to  inquire  whether  the  'antinomies'  do  not 
arise  rather  from  volitional  discord  than  from  intellectual 
defect,  whether  the  contradictions  of  the  reason  are  not 
forced  upon  it  by  an  indecision  which  knows  not  what 


130  F.   C.  S.  SCHILLER  n 

it  wills,  a  division  of  the  will  which  insists  on  willing 
incompatibles,  or  a  lack  of  courage  and  endurance  which 
fails  to  follow  out  what  it  wills. 

That  this  should  be  the  case  need  not  arouse  surprise. 
We  are  all  sufficiently  aware  that  systematic  thinking, 
clearly  conscious  of  its  aim,  is  a  somewhat  infrequent 
phenomenon,  and  that  in  myriad  ways  intellectual  confusion 
renders  possible  the  co-existence  of  inconsistent  doctrines 
in  the  same  mind.  But  the  intellectualist  phrasing  of  our 
terminology  renders  us  slow  to  recognise  that  infirmity  of 
purpose  is  a  no  less  rampant  affliction,  that  numbers  of 
really  intelligent  persons  are  addicted  to  the  retention  of 
incompatible  desires,  and  either  do  not  know  what  they 
will,  or  cannot  '  make  up  their  minds '  to  will  consistently. 
Indeed  it  is  probably  true  to  say  that  'confusion  of  will ' 
is  a  better  description  of  a  very  common  psychic  condition 
than  '  confusion  of  thought,'  and  that  most  of  what  passes 
for  the  latter  is  more  properly  ascribed  to  the  former. 
For  all  such  volitional  indecision,  whereof  a  desire  both  to 
eat  one's  cake  and  to  have  it  is  by  no  means  the  least 
venial  form,  masks  itself  in  intellectual  vestments,  and 
so  contributes  to  cast  doubt  upon  the  faith  that,  with 
patience  and  proper  treatment,  our  minds  are  adequate 
instruments  to  cope  with  the  practical  problems  of  our 
experience. 

In  illustration  of  this  doctrine  a  single  very  common 
and  glaring  instance  may,  on  the  principle  excinplo  ab  tino 
disce  vmnes,  suffice.  The  insolubility  of  the  '  mystery  of 
evil '  arises  simply  and  solely  out  of  the  fact  that  people 
will  neither  abandon  the  practice  of  passing  moral 
judgments  on  events,  nor  the  dogmas  which  render  all 
ethical  valuation  ultimate  foolishness.  As  soon  as  they 
make  up  their  distracted  '  minds '  (wills)  which  of  the 
incompatible  alternatives  they  will  choose  to  abide  by, 
whether  they  prefer  to  vindicate  the  supreme  validity  of 
moral  distinctions,  or  the  '  infinity  of  God '  and  the 
absolute  '  unity  of  the  universe,'  the  mystery  disappears. 
For  Evil  visibly  arises  from  certain  limitations,  performs 
certain  functions,  subserves  certain  purposes,  is  connected 


n  AXIOMS  AS   POSTULATES  131 

with  certain  conditions,  in  the  economy  of  the  universe, 
all  of  which  admit  of  being  empirically  determined  or 
conjectured.  All  that  is  required,  therefore,  to  bring  the 
existence  of  Evil  into  accord  with  the  postulated  goodness 
of  God  is  that  we  should  conceive  (as  we  easily  can)  a 
deity  subject  to  the  limitations,  working  under  the 
conditions,  aiming  at  the  purposes,  which  we  believe 
ourselves  to  have  discovered.  Similarly,  if  we  deny  that 
moral  attributes  can  fitly  be  applied  to  the  deity  or  the 
universe,  Evil  is  simply  a  natural  fact  like  any  other.  Of 
course,  if  we  refuse  to  do  either  of  these  things,  and  insist 
on  maintaining  both  these  positions,  we  manufacture  a 
mystery  which  is  as  insoluble  as  we  have  made  it.  It  is 
insoluble  because  we  will  not  either  live  in  (or  with)  a  non- 
moral  universe,  or  give  up  indulging  a  perverted  taste  that 
revels  in  infinities.  Thus  it  is  not  our  '  reason  '  which  is 
to  blame,  but  our  '  will.'  For  neither  reason  nor  revelation 
compels  us  to  frustrate  the  belief  in  God's  goodness  by 
that  in  His  infinity. 

And  even  in  cases  where  a  modicum  of  genuine 
intellectual  confusion  has  entered  into  the  composition  of 
an  antinomy  of  the  reason,  it  is  impossible  to  deny  the 
complicity,  and  ultimate  responsibility,  of  the  '  will.' 
Intellectual  confusion  is  most  frequently  the  product  of 
habitual  thoughtlessness,  carelessness,  inattention  and 
laziness,  and  even  where  it  is  due  to  sheer  stupidity,1  the 
obstinacy  which  adheres  to  an  antinomy  after  its  solution 
has  been  clearly  displayed  is  a  volitional  quality — of  a 
reprehensible  kind. 

We  may  infer  then  that  there  are  no  theoretically 
insoluble  problems,  or  at  all  events  that  we  have  no  right 

1   The  moral  valuation  of  stupidity  is  much  too  high  ;   perhaps  in  consequence 
the   prevalence  of  an   intellectualism  which,  by  divorcing   knowle   ge  and  action, 

intellectually 
•  atl'mity  with 
d  be  morally 
,s  ever  found 

i  their  social  medii  in.  Hence,  as 
>f  their  rejection  of  intellectualism, 
me  of  their  surplus  ingenuity  to 
jnctrance  '  and  expounding  in  its 


without  moral  guilt,  either  ii 
well  as  for  the  purpose  of  ev 
it  would  be  well  if  philosi 
inverting  their  ancient  para 
-tc.xd  the  profounder  and  nu 


its  possessors  or  i 


pliers    devotei 
lox   that  '  vici 


salu'arv  dictum  that  '  ignorance  i.->  vice.1 


132  F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER  » 

to  assume  so,  but  are  methodologically  bound  to  assume 
the  opposite.1 

§52.  But,  it  may  be  urged,  how  does  all  this,  even  if 
true,  help  Philosophy?  Is  it  not  just  as  bad,  nay  worse, 
that  men  should  hug  intellectual  contradictions  to  their 
bosoms,  and  cherish  absurdities  with  an  affectionate 
devotion,  than  that  they  should  believe  themselves  their 
reluctant  victims  ? 

I  think  not,  for  three  reasons  which  I  will  set  down. 

(1)  The    man   who    realises    that    he    is    inconsistent, 
deliberately  and   of  malice  prepense,  can   more  easily  be 
made   to   feel   the  responsibility  for  his   mental   condition 
than   he  who   imagines   that  the  very  constitution    of  his 
mind  brings  him  to  his  wretched  pass.      Moreover  in  most 
cases,   the   desires   which   attach   him   to   one   or   other  of 
the  incompatible  beliefs  are  not  such  as  he  really  respects, 
and  would  easily  faint  from  shame  or  wither  with  publicity. 

(2)  Confusion  of  will  may  be  remedied,  like  confusion 
of  thought,  by  attention  and  reconsideration.      Many  who 
have  hitherto  proceeded  unchallenged  in  blissful  ignorance 
of  their   motives,  who   have   lacked   a   clear  consciousness 
of  what  they  will  and  why,  once  they  had  their  attention 
called  to  it  would  set  to  work  to  clear  away  the  confusion. 

(3)  There  is  hope   from   the  young,  even   though  the 
old   generation   should   obstinately  cling   to   its   inveterate 
errors.      Errors   as   a   rule   are    not    renounced  ;     they   die 
out.      In    this    particular   case   the   prospect   is   perhaps   a 
little  brighter  than  usual,  because  not  all  who  now  believe 
in  their  speculative  impotence  really  enjoy  their  position. 
And    the    young    are    in    a    different   case  :    their    natural 
sympathies  are  rather  with  a  philosophy  that  makes  the 
blood  run  warm  than  with  one  that  congeals  the  natural 
flow  of  thought  by  the  chilling  vacuity  of  its  abstractions. 
And    they   have    little    or   no    inducement    to    adopt    the 
gratuitous  and  uncomfortable  perplexities  of  their  seniors. 
And    besides  errors    clearly  seen    to    arise   from    perverse 

1  I  am  already  inclined  to  deny  that,  despite  the  utmost  efforts  of  .sceptics, 
theologians,  and  Mr.  Bradley,  there  exist  any  theoretical  antinomies  which  can  be 
pronounced  insoluble  in  principle — unless  indeed  the  '  eternal  eussedness  '  of  man 
be  esteemed  such. 


ii  AXIOMS   AS   POSTULATES  133 

attitudes  of  will  are  no  longer  so  readily  communicable  as 
while  they  were  disguised  as  theoretic  dogmas.  Nor 
should  it  be  forgotten  that  intellectualism  is  intrinsically 
duller,  less  inspiring,  and  more  difficult  to  follow  than 
voluntarism,  which  appeals  more  directly  to  the  hopeful- 
ness, courage  and  enterprise  which  are  the  precious 
heritage  of  youth. 

So  that  on  the  whole  we  need  not  despair  of  Philosophy. 
Nay,  we  may  gradually  hope  to  see  substituted  for  the 
disheartening  and  slothful  twaddle  (face  all  the  distin- 
guished persons  who  have  repeated  it)  about  the  infirmities 
of  the  human  reason  and  its  impotence  to  break  through 
the  adamantine  barriers  of  an  alien  world,  exhortations 
bidding  us  be  of  good  cheer  and  go  forth  to  seek, 
if  we  would  find,  urging  us  to  act  if  we  would  know, 
and  to  learn  if  we  would  act,  and  assuring  us  that  if 
insuperable  limits  exist  to  the  development  and  progression 
of  the  human  spirit,  man  has  not  as  yet  taken  pains 
enough  to  discover  them,  while  it  is  the  part  of  a  cur 
and  a  craven  to  assume  them  without  need. 

And  so  we  must  essay  to  weld  together  thought  and 
deed,  or  rather,  to  resist  the  forces  that  insidiously  dis- 
sever them  and  pit  the  intellect  against  the  will  in  mean- 
ingless abstraction.  For  by  a  philosophy  that  seriously 
strives  to  comprehend  the  whole  of  experience,  the  unity 
of  the  agent  is  never  forgotten  in  the  multiplicity  of  his 
pursuits,  but  is  emphatically  affirmed  in  the  principle  of 
population,  which  pervades  all  theoretic  activity,  generates 
all  axioms,  initiates  all  experiment,  and  sustains  all  effort. 
For  ever  before  the  eyes  of  him  whose  wisdom  dares  to 
postulate  will  float,  in  clearer  or  obscurer  outline,  the 
beatific  vision  of  that  perfect  harmony  of  all  experience 
which  he  in  all  his  strenuous  struggles  is  striving  to  attain. 
And  instead  of  immolating  his  whole  life  to  the  enervating 
sophism  that  it  is  all  an  '  appearance  '  to  be  transcended 
by  an  unattainable  '  reality,'  let  him  hold  rather  that 
there  can  be  for  him  no  reality  but  that  to  which  he  wins 
his  way  through  and  by  means  of  the  appearances  which 
are  its  presage. 


Ill 

THE    PROBLEM    OF    FREEDOM    IN    ITS 
RELATION    TO    PSYCHOLOGY 

By  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON 

PART  I.  FREEDOM  :    A  DEFENCE  AND  A  STATEMENT 

1.  Much  of  the  perplexity  attaching  to  the  problem  of  Free- Will  arises  from 

the  wide-spread  belief  that  free-will  and  universal  determinism  are  not 
necessarily  incompatible. 

2.  In  upholding  this  view  the  theory  of  '  soft '  determinism,  as  it  has  been 

called  by  Prof.  James,  makes  such  concessions  to  the  theory  of  '  hard  '  or 
mechanical  determinism  as  render  freedom  logically  impossible.  Dr. 
Bosanquet  and  M.  Fouillee,  for  instance,  make  concessions  of  this  kind. 

3.  The  crucial  concession  is  made  when  soft  determinism  concedes  that  only 

matter  in  motion  can  be  a  determinant  of  material  changes  ;  for  the 
consequence  of  this  admission  is  a  logical  dilemma  which  compels  the 
conccder  to  own  that  he  must  be  either  a  materialist  or  a  supporter 
of  the  conscious  automaton  theory. 

4.  To  escape  from  this  dilemma,  we  must  either  retract  the  concession  which 

led  to  it,  or  show  that  the  conclusions  to  which  the  concession  logically 
drives  us  are  all  absurd. 

5.  The  retracting  of  the  concession  is  virtually  a  challenge  to  the  mechanical 

determinist  to  prove  his  own  statement  instead  of  pressing  us  to  accept 
it  as  axiomatic. 

6.  To  this  demand  for  verification   the  mechanical  determinisl  answers  by 

pointing  to  the  growing  fruitfulness  of  science  wherever  the  proposition 
in  question  is  accepted  as  a  regulative  principle.  Such  verification  is, 
however,  by  no  means  complete,  and  cannot  disprove  the  reality  of 
effective  psychical  initiative. 

7.  The  attempt  to  waive  this  demand  for  verification  on  the  ground  I  hat  the 

typically  individual  element  involved  in  an  act  of  free-will  eludes  by  it-. 
very  particularity  the  possibility  of  a  scientific  handling,  cannot  be 
regarded  as  valid. 

8.  The  alternative  way   of  escape   from    the   original   dilemma   by  showing 

the  absurdity  of  its  conclusions  is  the  simplest  so  far  as  the  positive 
indictment  of  absurdity  is  concerned.  It  is  palpably  absurd  to  deny 
that  '  meaning  '  is  a  determinant  of  material  changes. 

9.  The   more  difficult   task   consists  in  answering   the  counter-indictment  of 

absurdity  brought  forward   by  Naturalism   in  self-defence.      1'ut  we  are 

134 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM  135 

able  to  show  :  (a)  that  the  principle  of  psychical  initiative  is  in  no 
way  incompatible  with  the  principle  of  the  Conservation  of  Energy, 
properly  understood  ;  and  (j3)  that  it  does  not  violate  the  meaning  ot 
the  causal  concept,  inasmuch  as  the  idea  of  causal  nexus  does  not  pre- 
suppose either  a  measured  equivalency  or  a  homogeneity  in  nature 
between  cause  and  effect,  and  the  idea  of  psychical  causality  in  particular 
is  no  more  open  to  the  charge  of  inconceivability  than  is  the  idea  of 
causality  through  material  agency. 

10.  If  Freedom  is  not  Soft  Determinism,  neither  is  it   Indeterminism.     The 

necessity  for  choosing  definitely  between  these  two  rival  theories  arises 
only  when  the  issue  is  restricted  t<>  the  abstract  consideration  of  some 
specific  volitional  act.  It  is  therefore  imperative  to  clearly  define  the 
issue  at  stake  by  insisting  that  freedom  is  the  essence  not  only  of  self-con- 
scious volitional  activity  but  of  consciousness  itself,  and  that  we  cannot 
profitably  discuss  its  possibility  unless  we  start  from  the  relation  in  which 
the  conscious  subject  stands  to  its  object  within  the  unity  of  experience. 

11.  From  this  fundamental  standpoint  we  can  make  a  distinction  between  two 

forms  of  Psychology,  only  one  of  which  is  justified  on  the  ground  of  its 
fundamental  postulate  in  treating  the  Kgo  as  a  free  agent  :  the  postulate 
in  the  one  case  being  the  deterministic  assumption  of  the  physical 
sciences,  and  in  the  other  the  assumption  of  a  mutual  independence  of 
subject  and  object  which  is  at  one  and  the  same  time  relative  and  real. 

12.  A   criticism  of  Prof.  James's   indeterministic  position  shows  that  Indeter- 

minism  errs  in  three  main  ways:  ij  in  its  restricted,  absiract  point  of 
view,  z  in  its  recourse  to  the  Dens  ex  inachina,  and  3  in  its  formalism. 

PART   II.   THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FIRST  CAUSES  :  A  FUNDAMENTAL 
DISTINCTION  STATED  AND  APPLIED 

i.   STATKMENT  OK  THK   DISTINCTION 

13.  It    is    customary   with    psychologists    to    look    upon    the    deterministic 

assumption  as  a  necessary  postulate  of  scientific  inquiry.  This  is  true 
of  what  is  known  as  Empirical  Psychology,  whose  method  is  essentially 
inductive.  But  Psychology  may  be  treated  from  another  and  more 
inward  point  of  view  as  a  Science  of  Free  Agency,  and  as  such 
accepts  as  its  fundamental  assumption  a  certain  relation  between 
subject  and  object,  which  guarantees  the  real  though  relative  in- 
dependence of  the  subject.  This  distinction  is  marked  not  only  by 
a  radical  dissimilarity  in  the  nature  of  the  postulate,  but  by  a  coire- 
-pondingly  radical  difference  of  method. 

2.     DKYKI.OI'MK.NT    OK    THK    DISTINCTION 

14.  A   complete   definition   of   Psychology  should    include   a   reference   to  the 

points  of  view  from  which  it  is  to  he  .studied.  For  the  point  of  view 
determines  the  method,  and  the  radical  difference  of  method  referred 
;<>  above  constitutes  the  best  differentia  between  the  two  main  forms  ot 
psychological  treatment.  The  Inductive  Method  is  not  the  only  method 
for  investigating  the  facts  of  the  mental  life.  It  is  the  method  proper  to 
the  spectator's  point  of  view.  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  expericnt 
himself,  what  is  truly  explanatory  of  his  mental  activity  is  not  laws 
:  iductively  reached,  but  final  cause.-,  ends  of  action,  the  synthetic 
principles  through  which  the  agent  helps  in  creating  his  own  destiny, 
is.  Consciousness  has  for  long  been  regarded  as  essentially  a  synthesis,  but 
its  unity  has  been  persistently  conceived  as  a  combining  form  rather 
than  as  a  ca;i-al  agency.  It  is  only  recently  that  Dr.  Stout's  con- 


I36  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

ceplion  of  the  unity  of  consciousness  as  conative  unity  or  unity  of  interest 
has  brought  the  causal  factor  to  the  front. 

3.    Al'PLICATION    OF   THE    DISTINCTION 

1 6.  Ambiguities  of  a  fundamental  kind  arise  so  soon  as  we  ask  ourselves 

what  it  is  that  we  really  mean  when  we  call  Psychology  a  Natural 
Science.  Is  it  merely  descriptive,  or  is  it  explanatory  as  well  ?  Is  it  a 
mechanical  science  or  a  ideological  science,  or  both  ?  In  what  sense 
is  it  natural  as  opposed  to  normative  ?  In  what  sense  is  it  natural  as 
opposed  to  metaphysical  ?  The  distinction  already  traced  between 
the  Inductive  Psychology  and  the  Psychology  of  First  Causes  will 
help  us  to  unravel  these  ambiguities. 

17.  i".      A   discussion    of  the  first  difficulty  shows    us    that    Psychology  is 

descriptive  or  explanatory  according  as  it  is  studied  from  the  spectator's 
point  of  view  and  by  the  Inductive  Method,  or  from  the  inward  point 
of  view  of  the  experient  himself  by  the  help  of  what  may  perhaps  be 
called  the  Synthetic  or  Teleological  Method. 

1 8.  2°.   As  a   solution   of  the   second   ambiguity,   we  see  that  as   a  science 

of  first  causes  Psychology  is  primarily  and  essentially  Ideological  in 
its  method,  but  that  as  an  inductive  inquiry  its  method  is  essentially 
mechanical. 

19.  3°.   With    regard    to    the   relation    in   which   Psychology  stands   to    the 

Normative  Sciences,  it  can  be  shown  that  the  Psychology  of  first  causes 
stands  in  a  far  more  obvious  and  intimate  relation  to  such  a  science  as 
Logic  or  Ethics  than  does  the  purely  empirical  Psychology. 

20.  Finally,  4°,  touching  the  relation  in  which   Psychology  stands  to  Meta- 

physics, we  find  that  whilst  Inductive  Psychology  stands  to  Metaphysics 
in  precisely  the  same  relation  as  do  the  physical  sciences,  it  is  otherwise 
with  the  Psychology  of  first  causes.  It  can,  in  fact,  be  shown  that  the 
distinction  between  the  inductive  and  the  teleological  Psychologies  affords 
a  basis  for  a  corresponding  distinction  in  the  relation  of  Metaphysics  to 
Psychology. 

PART  I.  FREEDOM  :  A  DEFENCE  AND  A  STATEMENT 

§  i.  THE  question  of  free-will  owes  its  obscurity  far  less  to 
its  own  inherent  difficulty  than  to  the  perplexities  which 
iiave  been  thrown  in  its  way  by  the  theory  of  universal 
determinism.  Though  there  is  overwhelming  positive 
evidence  in  favour  of  free-will,  evidence  at  least  as  strong 
in  its  own  sphere  as  that  of  the  inertia  of  matter  in  the 
sphere  of  abstract  mechanics,  there  is  still  in  many 
quarters  a  strong  disposition  to  hold  it  as  an  illusion 
because  of  the  difficulty  it  finds  in  adjusting  itself  to  the 
demands  of  this  insatiable  theory.  The  problem  is 
moreover  gratuitously  obscured  through  a  certain  over- 
considcratcness  on  the  part  of  the  free-willists  that 
completely  succeeds  in  defeating  its  own  end.  Deter- 
minism of  the  strictest  mechanical  kind — so  the  agreement 


Ill 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM  137 


runs — shall  have  free  sway  over  all  the  lower  realm  of 
matter  in  motion,  provided  only  that  the  free  subject  be 
left  to  develop  apart  along  spiritual  lines  according  to  its 
nature.  This  concession  hard  determinism  smilingly 
accepts,  and,  on  the  strength  of  it,  triumphs  as  assuredly 
as  it  does  with  all  those  schemata  of  psychophysical 
parallelism  which  are  at  bottom  of  its  own  making. 
It  concerns  us  then  to  show  that  that  soft  determinism 
which  fights  freedom's  battle  whilst  keeping  aloof  from 
the  true  fighting  line  and  complacently  yielding  to  the 
mechanical  philosophy  all  its  heart's  desire,  cannot  possibly 
secure  the  freedom  that  it  claims.  We  must  insist  on  the 
fact  that  the  only  true  champion  of  freedom  is  the  hard- 
hitting anti-determinism  that  joins  issue  with  mechanism 
along  its  own  frontiers,  stoutly  maintaining  its  right  to 
reclaim  much  of  the  ground  that  has  been  unlawfully 
appropriated  by  the  mechanical  philosophers. 

§  2.  As  an  instance  of  what  Prof.  James  so  aptly  calls 
"  soft "  determinism,  we  may  take  the  attitude  adopted 
by  one  of  our  foremost  thinkers.  "  Why  object,"  writes 
Dr.  Bosanquet,  "  to  the  mind  being  conditioned  by  the 
causation  or  machinery  of  the  sequence  of  bodily  states  ? 
The  important  point  is,  what  the  thing  actually  is  ;  i.e., 
what  is  its  nature,  and  in  what  does  its  organisation  consist? 
We  are  quite  accustomed  to  find  that  the  things  we  value 
most  have  been  able  to  develop  through  a  system  of 
mechanical  causation,"  a  and  he  adds  elsewhere  :  "  If  you 
think  the  whole  universe  is  mechanical  or  brute  matter, 
then  we  can  understand  your  trying  to  keep  a  little  mystic 
shrine  within  the  individual  soul,  which  may  be  sacred 
from  intrusion  and  different  from  everything  else — a 
monad  without  windows.  But  if  3-011  arc  accustomed  to 
take  the  whole  as  spiritual,  and  to  find  that  the  more  you 
look  at  it  as  a  whole  the  more  spiritual  it  is,  then  you  do 
not  need  to  play  these  little  tricks  in  order  to  get  a  last 
refuge  for  freedom  by  shutting  out  the  universe."  ~ 

Now  in  answer  to  this  we  must  say,  with  all  respect, 
three  things: — (i)  We  do  not  object  to  the  mind  being 


138  W.   R.  BOYCE  GIBSON 


in 


conditioned  by  this  mechanism,  but  object  only  to  the 
indifference  shown  as  to  the  amount  or  extent  of  the 
conditioning.  The  most  exalted  conception  of  my 
spiritual  nature  will  be  poor  consolation  if  I  have  to 
recognise  that  my  being  here  and  not  there  in  the  body 
at  any  given  instant  is  a  fact  determined  entirely  by 
mechanical  considerations.  (2)  It  is  quite  true  that  from 
the  point  of  view  of  mind's  capacity  for  freedom,  its  nature 
is  the  most  important  consideration,  but  whether  such 
freedom  is  an  illusion  or  not,  depends  entirely  on  whether 
it  remains  throughout  this  life  of  ours  a  mere  capacity 
and  nothing  more,  or  an  actual  energy  that  does  work 
after  its  own  nature.  But  whether  this  is  so  or  not 
depends  again  on  whether  the  exigencies  of  mechanism 
really  leave  scope  for  it  or  not  ;  a  permanent  possibility 
of  freedom  is  of  no  avail  if  a  rigorous  mechanism  does  all 
the  work  in  its  own  rigid  way.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  the  free-will  controversy  the  positive  nature  of  mind  is 
therefore  not  the  essential  thing,  but  rather  its  relation  to 
matter  and  the  laws  of  matter.  (3)  The  question  cannot 
be  decided  from  the  watch-tower  of  spiritualistic  monism, 
for  such  spiritualism  has  no  basis,  much  less  a  superstruc- 
ture, except  in  so  far  as  it  has  won  the  ground  it  builds 
upon  from  the  rapacity  of  a  theory  that  claims  the  whole 
universe  for  its  exclusive  footing.  And  so  long  as  that 
footing  is  held  uncontested,  no  amount  of  spiritual 
complacency  can  avail  anything. 

M.  Fouillee  is  another  soft  detcrminist.  Like  Dr. 
Bosanquet  and  others  of  the  same  convictions  he  has  in 
reserve  a  most  valuable  armoury  to  be  used  in  freedom's 
cause  when  once  freedom  can  find  ground  to  stand  upon 
and  room  to  move  in.  "  We  are  indeed  children  of  the 
Cosmos,"  he  says,1  "  yet,  once  brought  forth  and  dowered 
with  a  brain,  we  possess  stored  up  within  us  some  of  the 
conditions  of  change  and  movement  which  arc  found  in 
Nature,  a  share  in  the  causality  of  the  universe,  interpret 
that  expression  as  you  will  ;  if  anything  is  active  in  this 
world  of  ours,  we  too  are  active  ;  if  anything  that  is  itself 

1    La  Psychologic  dcs  I dfas- Forces,  Introduction,  p.  xxiv. 


in  THE    PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM  139 

conditioned,  conditions  in  its  turn,  we  ourselves  condition 
likewise.  The  line  of  connection  between  antecedent  and 
consequent,  whatever  it  may  be,  passes  through  us."  But, 
we  may  ask,  within  a  system  of  universal  causality, 
however  interpreted,  what  room  is  there  for  initiative  ? 
An  initiative  that  enters,  it  doesn't  matter  how,  into  any 
closed  system  of  antecedents  and  consequents  is  itself 
determined,  not  by  itself  but  by  the  antecedents.  That 
which  conditions  after  being  conditioned  is  simply  trans- 
mitting, not  initiating,  some  capacity  to  condition  which 
originates,  we  must  suppose,  with  some  great  far-off  First 
Cause.  If  we  arc  children  of  the  Cosmos  in  this  sense 
we  are  at  best  mere  accumulators  of  potential  spiritual 
energy  which,  at  the  prick  of  some  antecedent,  passes  into 
the  kinetic  and  actual  forms.  This  conclusion  is  not  at 
all  modified  by  M.  Fouillee's  repeatedly  emphasised  dis- 
tinction between  mechanical  and  spiritual  determinism. 
Both  are  determinisms,  that  is  the  main  point,  the  one 
hard  and  rigid,  the  other  soft  and  flexible.  Thus  we  read 
in  the  second  volume  of  the  Idces-Forccs :  "If  the  facts  of 
Psychology  cannot  be  truly  brought  under  the  idea  of 
mechanism,  they  stand  in  no  such  intractable  relation  to 
the  idea  of  determinism,  provided  that  by  determinism  we 
understand  something  far  more  complex  and  at  the  same 
time  more  flexible  than  the  determinism  of  the  philo- 
sophers, notably  the  associationists  ; "  l  and  on  another 
page  of  the  same  treatise,  "  Psychological  determinism  is 
doubtless  much  more  flexible,  indefinite,  incalculable,  than 
is  physiological  determinism,  still,  from  our  point  of  view, 
it  is  none  the  less  a  determinism."  '  Now  this  pliant 
conception  of  determinism  resembles  nothing  so  much  as 
the  easy  indeterminism  which  M.  Fouillce  so  resolutely 
opposes.  Thus  in  his  essay  on  the  "  Dilemma  of  1  )cter- 
minism,"  Prof.  James  writes  as  follows  : — "  Indeterminism 
says  that  the  parts  have  a  certain  amount  of  loose  piny  on 
one  another,"  and  again,  "  Indeterminism  thus  denies  the 
world  to  be  one  unbend  im:'  unit  of  fact  "  '  and  the 


1 40  W.  R.   BOYCE  GIBSON  „, 

language  undoubtedly  suits  the  needs  of  Indeterminism 
much  better  than  it  can  do  those  of  Determinism,  however 
soft  and  yielding. 

Are  we  then  after  the  example  of  James  himself,  to 
find  refuge  from  our  chafe  against  the  flexibilities  of  free 
determinism  in  the  shapeless  arms  of  indeterminism?  Such 
a  reactionary  movement  is,  as  we  shall  try  to  point  out 
later,  needlessly  heroic.  Is  it  not  possible,  we  ask,  to 
cleave  to  the  ancient  name  of  Freedom  without  posing 
either  as  an  indeterminist  or  as  a  determinist,  rigid,  soft, 
or  free?  We  hold  that  it  is  certainly  possible,  and  hope 
to  justify  the  distinction  in  the  sequel  ;  meantime,  with 
this  end  in  view,  we  may  return  with  advantage  to  the 
main  line  of  our  argument. 

§  3.  The  soft  determinist,  as  already  remarked,  has  a  ten- 
dency to  put  matter  in  motion  completely  under  the  control 
of  the  mechanical  philosopher,  complacently  believing  that 
whatever  conclusions  the  latter  may  legitimately  come  to, 
on  his  own  ground,  will  undergo  spiritual  renewal  and 
take  on  the  meaning  of  liberty  so  soon  as  they  come 
under  the  transfiguring  spell  of  some  higher  category. 
Such  complacency  is,  however,  most  inopportune,  for  the 
concession  it  so  gracefully  yields  up  is  all  that  the 
mechanical  theory  needs  or  asks  for;  for  in  virtue  of  it  the 
body  of  the  free-minded  philosopher  down  to  its  minutest 
tremors  is  at  once  most  ruthlessly  enslaved  :  he  cannot 
even  extend  his  generous  hand  without  simply  carrying  out 
a  predetermined  necessity  of  action  which  the  Laplacean 
calculator  could  have  foreseen  emerging  at  the  birth  of 
time  from  the  original  nebula. 

Let  us  now  press  this  issue  more  closely,  and  ask 
wherein  this  concession  precisely  consists.  There  is,  I 
think,  a  difference  of  point  of  view  here  which  is  the 
cause  of  much  confusion.  The  apologist  of  mind  is  very 
apt  to  think  that  the  only  reserve  he  need  make  when 
dealing  with  the  mechanical  philosopher  is  to  point  out 
that  the  matter  in  motion  committed  into  the  hands  of 
the  latter  has  a  certain  aspect  which  cannot  in  any  way 
concern  his  physics.  It  is  not  only  extended  and  inert 


in  THE   PROBLEM  OF   FREEDOM  141 

and  so  on,  but  it  is  knowable.  The  idealist,  of  the  type 
we  are  considering,  seems  to  imagine  that,  when  considered 
afresh  as  knowledge,  matter  in  motion  will  become  duly 
penetrated  with  such  spiritual  meaning  as  will  lift  it 
entirely  beyond  the  reach  of  the  physicist.  Meanwhile 
the  living  body  pays  the  penalty  of  the  spirit's  tran- 
scendentalism, the  physicist  taking  care  of  that  in  his 
own  way.  The  mechanical  philosopher,  in  other  words, 
considers  the  concession  from  an  entirely  different  point 
of  view.  As  sole  trustee  of  matter  in  motion  he  at  once 
safeguards  his  interests  by  insisting  on  the  doctrine  that 
only  matter  in  motion  can  determine  in  any  way  the 
movements  of  matter.  This  is  how  he  understands  the 
concession. 

Here  then  is  the  crucial  statement  definitely  stated  : 
"  Only  matter  in  motion  can  be  a  determinant  of  material 
changes,"  and  the  psychologist  must  either  allow  its  validity 
or  at  once  reject  it  as  insufficiently  verified.  We  will 
suppose  that  he  does  the  former,  and  on  this  assumption 
follow  the  concession  into  its  various  consequences. 

The  concession  once  made  by  the  apologist  of  mental 
agency,  his  opponent,  the  naturalist,  approaching  him 
in  Socratic  fashion  asks  him  whether  he  believes  that 
mind  determines  the  movements  of  matter.  If  the 
psychologist  forgets  himself  sufficiently  in  the  truth  of 
things  and  answers  in  the  affirmative,  he  is  handed  the 
following  syllogism  to  reflect  over  : — 

Whatever  determines   movements  of  matter  is  itself 

matter  in  motion. 

Mind  determines  movements  of  matter. 
/.  Mind  is  itself  matter  in  motion. 

F.rgo  :  You  are  a  materialist. 

If  this  bait  fails,  however,  the  second  is  sure  to  succeed. 
For  when  the  psychologist,  repudiating  all  connection  with 
materialism  protests  that  he  does  not  believe  that  mind  is 
matter  in  motion,  that,  in  fact,  mind  is  not  matter  in 
motion,  his  opponent  is  at  once  able  to  answer  him  as 
follows  : — You  admit  then  the  two  following  premises  : 


142  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

1.  Whatever   determines    movements   of    matter    is 

itself  matter  in  motion. 

2.  Mind  is  not  matter  in  motion  ; 

you  must  therefore  admit  the  following  conclusion  : 

Mind  does  not  determine  the  movements  of  matter. 
Ergo :  You     are     a    supporter     of    the    Conscious 
Automaton  Theory. 

Now  there  is  no  escaping  from  this  cruel  alternative, 
once  the  major  premise  has  been  conceded.  This  is 
shown  on  a  big  scale  by  the  later  history  of  Philosophy. 
The  Barbara  syllogism  was  tried  first  and  accepted  by 
Holbach,  Lamettrie,  Helve"tius  and  the  rest.  It  was  the 
hey-day  of  Materialism.  Gradually  it  became  obvious 
that  such  materialism  was  ridiculous,  consciousness  being 
irreducible  to  a  mode  of  motion.  Camestres  then  came 
into  favour,  and  psychophysical  parallelism  into  vogue. 
Yes,  and  in  our  own  day  when  so  many  find  shelter 
under  the  shadow  of  Huxley  and  Avenarius,  this  second 
syllogism  is  still  cherished  as  the  germ  and  root  of  all 
true  Philosophy. 

§  4.  What  then  are  we  to  do  ?  One  of  two  things.  We 
must  either  push  on  or  retrace  our  steps,  for  to  stand 
where  we  are  is  to  confess  ourselves  beaten.  Either  way 
is  a  way  out.  Formally,  the  push-ahead  method  is  the 
better  of  the  two  ;  i.e.,  if  we  can  show  that  the  conclusion 
of  the  second  syllogism  is  quite  as  ridiculous  as  the 
conclusion  of  the  first,  that  it  is  quite  as  absurd  to  reduce 
consciousness  to  complete  inactivity  as  it  is  to  reduce 
it  to  a  calculable  mode  of  motion,  we  shall  make  it 
impossible  for  our  opponent  to  ferret  out  new  middle 
terms  in  order  to  prove  the  same  old  conclusion  in 
different  ways,  for  the  conclusion  will  have  been  disproved 
once  and  for  all.1 

1  Moreover,  we  shall  have  the  pleasure  of  meeting  with  Scepticism  on  the 
way.  for  wherever  there  is  a  formally  valid  syllogism  with  a  conclusion  proved 
to  he  materially  false,  and  with  premises  asserted  to  be  obvious,  there  will 
Scepticism  be  found.  Scepticism  in  fact  is  none  other  than  an  attitude  of 
philosophical  sulks  which  persists  in  obstinately  sticking  to  premises  though  all 
the  conclusions  to  which  they  lead  have  had  to  be  given  up.  "  I  have  one 
conclusion  in  reserve,"  it  says,  "  which  becomes  the  more  convincing  the  more 


m      THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM     143 

We  have  then  two  methods  of  procedure  open  to  us, 
the  push -ahead  method  of  contradicting  the  conclusion 
of  a  syllogism  and  the  falling-back  method  of  retracting 
the  admission  that  led  to  all  the  trouble.  Let  us  consider 
more  closely  the  logical  relation  between  them. 

§  5.  It  is  important  in  the  first  place  to  notice  what 
is  involved  in  the  retracting  of  an  admission.  Such 
retraction  simply  means  non-acceptance  of  the  retracted 
statement  as  a  proved  statement  ;  it  does  not  imply  any 
ability  to  disprove  it  even  by  a  single  instance.  It  says  : 
"  I  see  now  that  I  was  not  justified  in  accepting  that 
fateful  major  premise  as  obvious  or  proved,  nor  do  I 
consider  myself  bound  to  accept  it  until  you  can 
completely  verify  it."  On  the  other  hand,  the  flat 
contradiction  of  the  conclusion  that  mind  does  not 
determine  material  changes  requires  much  more  than 
this.  A  direct  proof  that  in  at  least  one  instance  or 
class  of  instances  mind  does  actually  determine  the 
movements  of  matter  would  of  course  be  the  most 
satisfactory  way  of  meeting  the  requirement.  Such  a 
direct  proof  is,  however,  out  of  the  question  since  we 
have  not  yet  discovered  how  it  is  that  mind,  qua  mind, 
can  come  into  contact  with  matter  at  all.  The  assertion 
is,  however,  capable  of  a  very  stringent  indirect  proof. 
This  indirect  proof  in  its  primitive  and  essential  bearing, 
consists  in  a  reductio  ad  absurduui  of  the  conclusion  we 
wish  to  contradict  ;  and  indeed  the  proposition  that  mind 
has  its  share  in  determining  material  changes  is  quite 
sufficiently  established  by  the  absurdities  to  which  the 
contradictory  assertion  inevitably  leads,  as  Dr.  Ward  in 
his  Gifford  Lectures  has  so  ably  shown.1  Still,  the 
indirect  proof  remains  incomplete  so  long  as  it  leaves 
unanswered  certain  objections  that  are  at  once  raised 

you  demolish  all   the  others,  for  these  serve  as  premises  for  it  just   in   proportion 
as  they  are  proved  absurd."     And  this  is  the  final  syllogism  :  — 

A  mode  of  reasoning  according  to  which  conclusions  necessarily  inferred 
from  obvious  premises  are  yet  demonstr.ibly  absurd  i.s  not  to  be  tripled. 

Now  the  process  by  which  we  human  beings  acquire  Knowledge  is  just  such 
a  mode  of  reasoning. 

Therefore,  Knowledge  is  not  to  be  trusted. 

1   Cf.  also  Sigwart,  I.^ic,  li"g.  trans.,  ii.  pp.  388-393. 


144  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

by  the  naturalist  so  soon  as  the  result  of  the  rednctio  ad 
absurdum  proof  is  stated  in  the  positive  form,  "  Mind 
therefore,  is  a  determinant  of  mental  change."1  We 
shall  come  across  these  by-and-by. 

We  proceed  now  to  develop  these  two  lines  of 
defence  :— 

1.  The  retraction  of  the  major  ; 

2.  The  contradiction  of  the  conclusion. 

86.  i.  The  retraction  of  the  major  of  the  Naturalistic 
Syllogism.— The  retraction  of  the  major  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  equivalent  to  the  request  that  the  mechanical 
philosopher  will  please  verify  his  statement  before  he 
presses  us  to  accept  it  ;  and  our  main  business  is  to  see 
clearly  what  this  demand  for  verification  really  involves. 
It  is  in  the  first  place  most  essential  to  note  that  the 
demand  must  not  be  addressed  to  physical  science  as 
such.  Physical  science  has  no  ears  for  such  a  question. 
If  the  physicist  deigns  to  reply  at  all,  he  will  say 
something  of  this  kind.  "  You  are  laying  your  meddle- 
some hand  on  the  great  regulative  principle  which  defines 
the  nature  and  meaning  of  my  science.  You  are  asking 
me  to  verify  the  principle  upon  which  all  my  verifications 
are  based.  I  can  no  more  fall  in  with  your  request  than 
Euclid  could  have  done  had  he  been  asked  for  a  proof 
of  his  own  axioms,  or  the  great  Stagirite  himself,  had 
a  proof  of  his  Principle  of  Contradiction  been  demanded 
of  him."  This  language  is  not  exaggerated.  The 
physicist,  qua  physicist,  is  perfectly  justified  in  resenting 
as  an  impertinence  the  demand  that  he  shall  prove  the 
principle  which  at  every  step  of  his  work  determines 
the  direction  of  his  inquiry.  An  illustration  from 
Astronomical  Science  may  help  to  make  our  meaning 
clear.  Towards  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
certain  puzzling  irregularities  were  observed  in  the 

1  This  contradiction  of  the  conclusion  indeed  requires,  as  \ve  have  already 
hinted,  more  of  the  negator  than  the  denial  of  the  major  premise  itself  involves  ; 
for  in  the  latter  case  it  is  only  necessary  to  show  that  something  other  than 
matter  in  motion  can  set  matter  in  motion,  whereas  the  denial  of  the  conclusion 
requires  the  special  proof  that  the  movements  of  matter  can  be  determined 
bv  mind. 


in      THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM     145 

movements  of  the  planet  Uranus.  There  were  two 
conceivable  ways  of  hypothetically  explaining  these 
irregularities.  Either  Uranus  was  being  disturbed  by 
the  influence  of  matter  in  motion  elsewhere,  or  by  some 
volitional  agency  of  more  than  human  power.  This 
second  alternative  was  not  in  itself  inconceivable.  It 
was  inadmissible  only  as  a  scientific  explanation.  It  was 
an  alternative  that  Astronomy  could  not  possibly  have 
admitted  without  ipso  facto  admitting  that  it  had  reached 
the  limits  of  the  science,  i.e.  without  ceasing  to  be 
Astronomy.  Suppose,  however,  that  some  incalculable 
demon  had  really  been  responsible  for  the  perturbations. 
Could  Astronomy,  we  ask,  have  ever  found  it  out  ?  By  no 
means.  It  would  be  still  puzzling  its  mighty  intellect 
for  a  mechanical  solution  and  meanwhile  be  blaming  its 
telescopes,  the  irreflecting  nature  of  the  surface  of  the 
disturbing  body,  its  extraordinary  density  that  left  it  too 
small  for  visibility  just  there  where  it  ought  to  have  been, 
etc.,  etc.,  and  so  it  would  go  puzzling  on  for  ever, 
readjusting  its  hypotheses,  even  that  of  gravitation  itself, 
if  necessary,  in  order  to  render  the  phenomenon 
mechanically  intelligible.  It  would,  in  fact,  simply  repeat 
over  again  in  its  improved  modern  way,  those  processes 
of  adjusting  and  readjusting  epicycles  and  excentrics 
which  were  forced  by  the  same  respect  for  postulates 
upon  the  bewildered  observers  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

So  much  for  the  physicist,  qua  physicist,  and  his 
connection  with  the  matter.  Regulative  principles,  qua 
regulative  principles,  must  be  left  severely  alone.  They 
arc  principles  for  working  with  and  not  for  discussing. 

We  must  turn  then  to  the  philosopher  in  physics  who  in 
the  capacity  of  naturalist  first  forced  upon  our  attention 
the  doctrine  we  are  disputing.  \Ve  must  demand  our 
verification  from  him.  What  then  docs  the  mechanical 
philosopher  say  by  way  of  justifying  the  statement  that 
he  makes?  Me  puts  himself  at  the  outset  under  the 
shadow  of  the  physicists.  "  The  physicist,"  we  hear  him 
say,  "  is  of  course  quite  right  in  having  nothing  to  do 
with  you.  All  the  material  sciences  presuppose  the  non- 

L 


146  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

interference  of  mind.  They  stipulate  in  the  first  place 
that  whatever  is  subjective  in  sensation  or  opinion  shall 
be  winnowed  away  by  objective  verification,  and  pre- 
suppose in  the  second  place  that  such  objective  verification 
is  not  thwarted  by  the  caprice  of  some  incalculable  demon 
or  other  untraceable  volitional  agency."  "Now  this  silence 
on  the  part  of  Physics,"  he  continues,  "  is  the  best  proof 
possible  of  the  real  truth  of  its  regulative  principle  :  it  is 
being  perpetually  verified  by  its  fruits.  Apart  from  the 
living  body  all  moving  matter  has  already  been  deanthro- 
pomorphised,  while  as  regards  the  living  body  itself,  our 
mechanical  physiologists  are  busy  deanthropomorphising 
that,  and  are  proving  successful  beyond  expectation. 
Indeed  it  is  becoming  abundantly  clear  that  it  is  only  the 
complexity  of  this  material  that  now  stands  in  their  way, 
and  that  when  that  difficulty  has  been  overcome,  there 
will  be  nothing  occult  or  undetermined,  even  in  the 
most  sprightly  of  men.  The  spins  and  rolls  and  intimate 
twists  of  a  man's  body  will  then  be  seen  to  be  as 
mechanically  unidetermined  as  are  the  motions  of  a 
spinning-top,  a  billiard  ball,  or  a  screw."  Now  there  is 
only  one  answer  to  this,  the  simple  reminder,  namely,  that 
uniform  success  in  the  application  of  any  working  principle 
to  any  subject-matter  does  not  verify  it  in  those  special 
regions  where  it  has  not  yet  been  applied,  and  that  where 
great  spiritual  issues  seem  to  depend  on  its  not  being 
universally  applicable  to  the  subject-matter  in  question 
there  is  every  reason  to  cry  out  "  unproven  !"  even  though 
your  opponent  is  seated  triumphantly  on  the  Milky  Way 
and  you  are  squeezed  between  the  inner  and  the  outer 
rinds  of  a  man's  brain.  If  the  physiologist  were  ever 
able,  in  detail,  to  show  that  all  the  molecular  movements 
in  a  living  body  were  entirely  determined  by  mechanical 
relations,  then  the  idea  of  psychical  guidance  would  be 
exploded.  "  Thereafter,"  as  Dr.  Ward  puts  it,  "  the  idea 
of  psychical  guidance  would  not  conflict  with  a  theory,  it 
would  be  refuted  by  facts." l  But  no  such  verification 
is  forthcoming.  Physiology  has  not  shown  that  its 

1   Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  ii.  p.  71. 


in  THE   PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM  147 

subject-matter  is  coextensive  with  the  sum-total  of  the 
molecular  changes  within  the  organism.  As  a  science  it 
is  deanthropomorphic  by  definition  ;  its  assumptions  and 
methods  are  mechanical,  but  the  life  it  studies  is  not 
therefore  deanthropomorphised.  It  has  not  yet  proved 
that  there  are  no  eminent  causes,1  no  body  set  in  motion 
by  mind.  It  only  assumes  that  there  are  none,  and  works 
upon  that  assumption.  Psychology  must  see  that  a 
methodological  assumption  is  not  stiffened  into  an  axiom, 
and  in  the  meantime  rest  content  that  its  fundamental 
belief  in  the  reality  of  effective  psychical  initiative  and 
guidance  is  at  least  not  disproved  by  physical  science, 
since  the  latter  has  failed  to  prove  that  certain  physical 
events  within  the  living  organism  may  not  have  other 
than  physical  conditions. 

§  7.  This,  I  fancy,  is  the  only  way  in  which  the  ad- 
vancing tide  of  matter  can  be  restrained  from  that  undue 
encroachment  upon  the  frontier-shores  of  mind  which,  if 
demonstrably  successful,  would  reduce  Psychology  to  the 
level  of  a  Science  of  pure  Illusion.  I  can  think  of  only 
one  other  suggestion  for  coping  with  the  difficulty,  as 
alluring  as  it  is  inadmissible.  Why  not  state  frankly,  so 
it  may  be  urged,  that  this  demand  for  verification  is  a 
demand  which  Science  by  its  very  nature  is  precluded 
from  satisfying  ?  The  movements  wherein  freedom  finds 
expression,  are  they  not  of  that  highly  individualised  type 
which  Science,  on  account  of  its  general  character,  cannot 
possibly  bring  under  its  control  ?  Does  not  Science  fix 
and  universalise  whatsoever  it  touches,  can  it  ever  take 
into  consideration  at  all  motions  which  being  under  an 
individual's  control,  will  never  recur  again  under  precisely 
the  same  conditions  ?  And  if  this  is  the  case,  can  we  not 
conclude  that  Science  on  account  of  the  uniform  generality 
of  its  processes  is  for  ever  debarred  from  investigating  the 
individualised  movements  of  living  bodies  in  motion,  and 
hence  for  ever  debarred  from  disproving  the  assertion  of 
immediate  experience,  that  mind  itin  help  in  determining 
the  movements  of  matter  ? 


148  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON 


in 


This  specious  plea  that  the  real  unknowable  for  Science 
is  the  individual  element,  and  that  this  individual  element 
is  precisely  what  is  involved  in  the  assertion  of  free-will 
cannot  be  seriously  entertained  in  this  connection,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  to  hold  the  individual  thus  beyond  the 
reach  of  Science  is  either  to  beg  the  whole  question  or  to 
underestimate  the  possibilities  of  Science.  The  only 
individuality  we  can  here  be  dealing  with  is  the  atomic 
individuality  of  matter  in  motion,  and  this  being  so,  a 
judicious  use  of  the  scientific  imagination  will,  I  think, 
enable  us  to  picture  to  ourselves  how  Science  could 
grapple  with  the  difficulty  which  such  material  individu- 
ality presents.  We  must  imagine  a  wonderfully-devised 
instrument,  a  combination  of  biograph,  stereoscope,  and 
improved  Rontgen  apparatus,  which  could  be  so  worked 
as  to  reproduce  in  its  own  mechanical  way  upon  a  screen 
all  the  motions  of  all  the  individual  cells  of  a  living  body, 
and  with  it  the  environment  with  which  the  body  happened 
to  be  in  immediate  contact  during  any  continuous  lapse 
of  time.  Let  us  further  suppose  that  this  instrument  is 
helped  out  by  a  microscope  that  can  indefinitely  increase 
the  spatial  dimensions  of  things,  and  that  an  indefinitely 
slow  motion  in  time  is  secured  through  an  extraordinary 
perfection  of  the  biograph  section  of  the  instrument,  on  a 
principle  similar  to  that  which  now  enables  scientists  to 
study  at  leisure,  in  its  successive  stages,  the  moment's 
history  of  the  splash  of  a  drop.  The  record  once  taken 
would  be  indefinitely  reproducible,  so  that  the  objection  as 
to  the  uniqueness  of  the  momentary  states  of  brain  and 
body  would  cease  to  exist.  The  conditions  under  which 
the  movements  took  place  could  always  be  renewed. 
The  mechanical  philosopher  would  then  be  able  to  follow 
in  detail  the  movements  of  each  individual  cell,  follow 
each  remotest  tremor  to  its  source  in  the  periphery  or 
central  organ,  and  so  eventually  have  the  chance  of  putting 
his  regulative  principle  to  its  final  test.  Of  course  it 
would  not  be  necessary,  so  far  as  verification  of  the  point 
at  issue  is  concerned,  to  study  more  than  one  typical 
instance,  provided  it  were  really  typical.  The  individual 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  149 

whose  motions  were  thus  being  recorded  would  have  to 
be  taken  when  he  was  deliberately  excercising  his  will 
with  a  knowledge  of  the  issues  involved. 

We  may  consider  ourselves  then  fully  justified  in 
pressing  the  mechanical  philosopher  for  the  verification 
of  "  that  most  unwarrantable  assumption  "  that,  whatever 
determines  the  movements  of  matter  is  itself  matter  in 
motion,  and  in  building  up  our  mental  philosophies 
meanwhile,  on  the  assumption  that  it  will  never  be 
verified,  and  that  a  conscious  effort  of  the  mind  can 
bear  its  associated  body  at  any  time  in  an  absolutely 
unpredictable  direction,  and  to  an  absolutely  unforeseeable 
distance  in  that  direction.  The  element  of  weakness 
involved  in  this  attitude  may  be  summed  up  in  the  fact 
that,  from  the  standpoint  of  this  argument,  we  are  always 
exposed  to  the  bare  possibility  of  having  to  confess  in 
some  dim  future  age  that  our  opponent's  statement  has 
been  duly  verified  and  must  be  accepted.  Still  the 
possibilities  of  such  verification,  in  the  problem  under 
discussion,  are  so  immeasurably  remote  that  they  may 
be  treated  as  infinitesimals  of  an  infra-logical  order  and 
be  entirely  neglected.  Such  neglect  may  moreover  prove 
to  be  strictly  justified  by  the  results  reached  along  the 
second  line  of  procedure  wherein  we  contradict  the 
conclusion  of  the  naturalistic  syllogism  by  the  help  of 
a  rednctio  ad  absurdum,  to  which  second  defence  we  now 
proceed. 

§  S.  2.  The  contradiction  of  the  conclusion  of  the  natural- 
istic syllogism  by  means  of  a  reductio  ad  absurdum. — The 
thesis  that  mind  can  not  in  any  way  determine  material 
movements,  that,  as  Dr.  Sigwart  puts  it,  "  we  stand  in  no 
other  relation  to  our  bodies  than  to  the  motion  of  the 
fixed  stars  "  '  is  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  paradoxes 
that  the  wit  of  man  has  ever  propounded.  \Vc  must 
try  and  show  that  it  is  also  one  of  the  most  absurd.  Its 
essential  purport  is,  that  all  material  changes  that  occur 
in  the  body  or  out  of  it,  take  place  in  entire  indifference 
as  to  whether  they  chance  to  be  accompanied  by  con- 


ISO  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON 


in 


sciousness  or  not.  Consciousness  is  only  an  echo,  a 
shadow,  an  epiphenomenon,  an  emanation  from  nowhere, 
that  appears  so  soon  as  certain  essential  conditions  are 
realised,  e.g.,  the  sufficient  nutrition  of  the  various  parts 
of  the  nervous  system,  and  disappears  with  the  disappear- 
ance of  any  one  of  these  essential  conditions,  but  neither 
its  coming  nor  its  staying  nor  its  going  concerns  in  any 
way  anything  but  itself.  Thus,  according  to  the  theory 
we  are  criticising,  the  movements  of  the  pen  with  which 
these  words  are  written  and  the  written  words  themselves 
are,  as  movements  and  products  of  movement,  perfectly 
independent  of  the  instinct  and  the  thought  that  find 
expression  through  them  :  they  would  have  come  to  pass 
in  precisely  this  way  and  no  other  had  the  last  spark 
of  consciousness  flickered  away  countless  ages  ago  ;  and 
the  reader  who  interprets  the  printed  type  and  lingers 
over  some  sentence,  his  whole  statuesque  attitude, 
whatever  it  be,  was  a  foregone  conclusion  when  the 
first  atom  in  space  gave  its  first  little  shiver. 

To  describe  such  paradoxes  as  these  is  really  to 
explain  them  away  :  they  shrivel  off  in  their  own  light. 
Still  it  is  best  to  seize  even  an  absurdity  by  some 
tangible  handle.  Let  us  then  replace  the  somewhat 
vague  conception  of  "  mind "  by  the  much  clearer  one 
of  "  meaning,"  and  ask  ourselves  whether  any  theory 
that  makes  meaning  ineffectual  in  determining  the 
movements  of  one's  body  can  evade  the  charge  of 
absurdity  ?  Let  us  take  two  or  three  definite  instances. 
Consider  for  a  moment  the  import  that  the  words  "  yes  " 
and  "  no "  have  on  certain  critical  occasions.  "  Yes  " 
sets  the  young  blood  careering  in  all  directions,  "  no " 
determines  for  the  body  the  attitude  typical  of  wounded 
pride,  misery,  or  despair.  Shall  we  say  that  this 
difference  is  simply  the  difference  in  organic  reverberation 
consequent  on  the  difference  in  tympanal  flutter  due  to 
two  such  different  air-vibrations  as  that  set  going  by  a  nasal 
and  that  other  set  going  by  a  sibilant  ?  Or  take  another 
instance.  A  goes  up  to  B  as  he  leans  with  his  back  to 
the  mantelpiece  and  tells  him  in  French  that  his  coat- 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  151 

tails  are  on  fire.  The  organic  result  is  imperceptible. 
He  repeats  the  statement  in  English  and  B's  whole  body 
instantaneously  reacts.  Or  again  you  insult  A,  who 
happens  to  be  deaf,  and  he  smiles  at  you  ;  you  treat  B 
to  the  same  epithets,  and  he  flings  you  them  back  in 
scorn.  Meaning  and  Motion  are  then  unquestionably 
connected  in  this  sense  that  that  which  is  not  matter 
in  motion,  namely  meaning,  is  yet  an  important  deter- 
minant of  material  changes,  and  the  theory  that  compels 
us  to  deny  the  connection  in  this  sense  is  hopelessly 
absurd. 

§  9.  There  seems  to  be  but  one  intelligible  retort  to 
this  charge  of  absurdity.  It  takes  the  "  tu  quoque  "  form, 
"  I'm  mad,  that's  true,  but  so  are  you."  This  retort 
consists  in  bringing  forward  certain  important  objections 
to  the  statement  that  mind  can  determine  material 
changes  with  the  conviction  that  they  are  unanswerable, 
so  that  when  the  final  reckoning  is  made  the  most 
formidable  verdict  for  the  critic  of  naturalism  will  be 
that  thesis  and  antithesis  are  equally  absurd,  that  it 
is  just  as  impossible  to  maintain  that  mind  can  determine 
matter  as  it  is  to  maintain  that  it  cannot. 

a.  Let  us  start  with  the  most  frequent  as  well  as  the 
most  superficial  objection  that  is  raised  by  Naturalism 
to  the  idea  that  mind  can  determine  the  movement  of 
matter.  The  statement,  it  is  urged,  is  incompatible  with 
the  great  principle  of  the  Conservation  of  Energy.  Let 
us  briefly  examine  this  objection.  It  starts  with  assuming 
that  mind  or  mental  activity  can  only  control  matter 
on  condition  of  introducing  into  or  abstracting  from 
the  material  system  a  certain  supply  of  fresh  energy 
or  capacity  for  physical  work,  and  this  it  is  maintained 
is  quite  out  of  the  question.  And  the  reason  given  is 
simply  this,  that  the  amount  of  energy  in  the  material 
universe  is  constant. 

Now,  in  the  first  place  this  statement  is  far  from 
being  the  record  of  an  ascertained  fact.  What  physicist 
has  ever  established  an  equation  between  the  whole 
energy  of  the  universe  at  any  time,  including  the  energies 


152  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

of  all  the  stars  of  heaven  and  all  the  cells  of  all  living 
bodies,  and  its  energy  at  a  subsequent  moment  of  time. 
No  physicist,  we  may  safely  say,  has  ever  dreamt  of 
such  an  equation.  The  equation  of  constancy  is  in 
fact  a  most  unjustifiable  extension  in  indefinitum  of 
the  well-known  equation  of  equivalence.  The  fallacy 
involved  in  this  extension  is  picturesquely  exposed  by 
Dr.  Ward.  "  Those  who  insist  that  the  quantity  of  this 
energy  in  the  universe  must  be  constant  seem  to  me," 
says  Dr.  Ward,  "  in  the  same  position  as  one  who  should 
maintain  that  the  quantity  of  water  in  a  vast  lake  must 
be  constant  merely  because  the  surface  was  always  level, 
though  he  could  never  reach  its  shores  nor  fathom  its 
depth."  l 

This  remark  leads  us  on  at  once  to  our  second  point, 
to  wit,  that  the  so-called  principle  of  the  constancy  of 
energy  has  not  even  the  hypothetical  necessity  of  a 
regulative  principle  of  Physics.  What  guides  the 
physicist  in  forming  his  energy-equations  is  not  the 
idea  of  the  constancy  of  energy  within  the  universe,  but 
that  of  the  balance  of  energy  about  any  given  change  as 
fulcrum.  The  energy-level  must  remain  constantly  the 
same.  There  must  be  equivalence  between  the  distribu- 
tion of  energy  within  the  system  under  consideration 
and  any  subsequent  redistribution  of  this  energy  within 
the  system.  The  "  constancy  of  energy  "  as  a  postulate 
of  physics  comes  indeed  to  nothing  more  than  this. 
"  Given  a  finite,  known  quantity  of  physical  energy- 
energy,  that  is,  which  has  its  mechanical  equivalent- 
then  if  that  energy  be  measured  after  any  transformation, 
it  must  be  precisely  equivalent  in  amount  to  the  original 
quantity."  It  is  stipulated,  in  other  words,  that  lost 
energy  can  always  be  found  again  provided  the  precise 
amount  lost  is  known.  There  is  no  attempt  to  deal 
with  the  whole  amount  of  energy  in  the  universe  at 
any  time,  a  perfectly  indefinite,  incalculable  quantum. 
The  assumption  of  constancy  is  therefore  not  in  any 
way  the  pJiysicisfs  assumption.  Just  as  the  postulate 


in  THE   PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM  153 

of  the  indestructibility  of  matter  is  really  nothing  more 
than  the  balance  of  weights  after  a  chemical  change, 
so  that  of  the  indestructibility  of  energy  is  nothing  more 
than  the  mathematical  balance — in  terms  of  mechanical 
equivalents — between  the  capacity  for  work  within  a 
certain  closed  system  before  a  certain  amount  of  actual 
work  is  done,  and  the  capacity  for  work  within  the  same 
closed  system  after  the  transformation  has  taken  place. 
The  first  postulate  has  meaning  only  in  so  far  as  bodies 
have  weight,  the  second  only  in  so  far  as  energies  have 
their  mechanical  equivalent ;  in  either  case,  to  express 
the  matter  more  generally  and  more  accurately,  the 
postulate  has  meaning  only  in  so  far  as  the  possession 
of  a  common  denominator  enables  it  to  be  made. 

Now  when  the  constancy  of  energy  is  understood 
in  this  strictly  economical  and  scientific  sense,  the 
interpretation  cannot  in  any  way  demand  the  exclusion 
of  mind  from  among  the  possible  determinants  of  material 
changes,  except  as  a  convenient,  or  rather,  necessary 
postulate  for  the  working  purposes  of  physics, — without 
making  the  assumption  that  the  truth  of  a  principle 
within  a  closed  circle  of  material  agency  sufficiently 
justifies  the  inference  that  material  things  must  under 
all  circumstances  form  a  circle  closed  on  all  sides.1  Here 
again  we  have  to  defend  the  rights  of  spirit  and  spon- 
taneity by  insisting  that  Physical  Science  shall  not  make 
statements  that  stultify  all  spiritual  life  and  make  history 
ridiculous  unless  it  be  prepared  to  prove  them  to  the 
hilt.  The  conservation  of  energy  is  quite  incapable 
of  any  such  proof,  and  Naturalism  would  do  well  to 
ponder  over  these  words  of  Dr.  Sigwart  : — "  Even  if 
equivalence  between  all  chemical  events  and  mechanical 
motion,  heat,  electricity,  etc.,  were  fully  established 
empirically,  yet  we  could  be  certain  of  the  truth  of 
the  principle  only  ivitldn  the  sphere  in  which  its  deter- 
minations were  obtained,  in  those  purely  physical  and 
chemical  events  of  inorganic  nature  which  we  reduce 
to  exact  casual  laws  in  such  a  way  that  every  event  may 


154  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

be  calculated  from  its  conditions."  But  in  Psychology 
we  have  not  the  same  footing.  The  possibility  of  stating 
the  amount  of  potential  energy  stored  up  in  a  sperma- 
tozoon or  a  germ  "  is  a  hypothesis  justified  upon  Methodo- 
logical grounds,  but  not  a  proved  proposition."  ] 

The  result  of  this  discussion  may  be  explicitly  stated 
as  follows.  It  has  shown  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
Conservation  of  Energy  can  offer  no  decisive  objection 
to  the  theory  that  mind  controls  matter  by  actually 
increasing  or  diminishing  the  amount  of  energy  in  the 
universe.  It  was  important  that  we  should  gain  this 
concession  from  our  opponents.  We  could  indeed  have 
evaded  the  whole  argument  had  we  been  content  to  allow 
that  mental  control  over  matter  can  take  effect  without 
any  energy  being  introduced  into  or  withdrawn  from  the 
physical  universe  ;  for  once  we  allow  that  mind  while 
controlling  and  directing  energy,  is  yet  not  a  source  of 
energy,  we  have  no  cause  of  dispute  with  the  principle  of 
Conservation.  Energy  being  directionless  or  rudderless — 
to  use  Dr.  Ward's  expression — mind  could  then  play  the 
part  of  a  rudder  without  interfering  with  the  unconditional 
integrity  of  the  principle  in  question.  But  such  evasion, 
like  many  another,  would  have  been  worse  than  profitless. 
The  concession,  while  it  gave  a  handle  to  the  mechanical 
philosopher  for  effective  purposes  of  counter -thrust, 
avails  the  conceder  nothing.  For  the  principle  of  the 
Conservation  of  Momentum  which  takes  direction  of 
motion  as  well  as  velocity  into  account  is  ready  to 
swallow  up  what  the  Conservation  of  Energy  can  spare. 
As  soon  as  mind  makes  its  modest  attempt  to  direct  the 
dance  of  the  vital  molecules  without  putting  into  its  work 
any  physical  energy,  contriving  to  push  constantly  at 
right  angles  to  the  direction  of  motion  with  the  ideal 
accuracy  of  the  mathematician,  it  is  snapped  up  as 
trangressing  the  inviolable  umdeterminism  of  physical 
changes — and  this  is  the  root  of  the  whole  mechanical 
theory — according  to  which  not  only  the  energy  but  the 
direction  of  motion  of  every  atom  of  matter  is  pre- 


in  THE   PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM  155 

determined  from  the  very  outset.1  Energy  is  directionless 
not  in  the  sense  of  drifting  chancewise  at  every  turn  but 
in  the  sense  of  its  being  a  function  of  velocity  only, 
and  not  of  this  velocity's  direction.  It  is  directionless  only 
when  abstracted  in  thought  from  the  matter  that  embodies 
it :  the  moving  matter  itself,  as  the  physicist  conceives  it, 
moves  eternally  along  in  its  predetermined  courses,  and 
its  capacity  for  work  goes  with  it.  In  a  word  there  can  be 
no  loopholes  in  a  system  which  is  based  on  the  postulate 
that  there  shall  be  none.  "  That  a  rigorous  determination 
is  deducible  from  the  mechanical  scheme  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  it  has  been  put  into  the  fundamental  premises."  '• 
/3.  A  somewhat  deeper-going  objection  to  the  theory  of 
mind's  control  over  matter  suggests  itself  naturally  at  this 
point  of  our  inquiry.  Granted  that  it  has  been  shown 
that  as  a  statement  of  fact  the  objection  grounded  on  the 
Conservation  of  Energy  is  baseless,  and  that  it  is  equally 
impossible  to  maintain  that  the  doctrine  has  any  binding 
claim  over  our  thought,  it  may  yet  be  urged  that  inas- 
much as  our  theory  expresses  a  causal  relation  between 
mind  and  matter,  it  violates  the  meaning  of  the  causal 
concept  and  is  therefore  inadmissible.  But  before  we 
fall  in  with  this  objection  let  us  look  well  at  the  causal 
chain  with  which  our  objector  proposes  to  fetter  us,  and 
fix  our  attention,  in  particular,  on  its  three  main  links. 
Each  of  these,  we  find,  bears  its  own  peculiar  inscription. 
On  the  first  we  read  that  there  must  be  quantitative 
equivalence  between  cause  and  effect  ;  on  the  second  that 
there  must  be  qualitative  likeness  or  homogeneity  between 
cause  and  effect,  and  on  the  third  that  the  connection 
between  cause  and  effect  must  be  scientifically  conceivable. 
Now  we  propose  to  show  that  these  conditions  which  the 
all -enslaving  naturalist  imposes  on  his  conception  of 

1  The  same  fundamental  objection  applies  to  Sigwart's  own  footnoie  suggestion 
(l.o*ic.  Kng.  trans,  ii.  p.  386)  that  it  might  IK-  possible  •.,)  maintain  the 
hypothesis  that  the  physical  law  of  energy  n-mained  intaet.  and  that  only  the 
conditions  of  the  transition  from  active  energy  into  potential,  and  ;  ;,r  ,-rrvi.',  vary 
with  relations  to  psychical  states. 

See  also  I'et/.oldt,  Kinfuhrun*  in  </.v  f'hi\>Si'>f>/iit'  d,-r  Rein:n  /•'.>•''.;>: rung, 
I,eipsic,  i')oo,  Part  I.  eh.  i.  especially  p.  16. 

-    Dr.  Ward,  Naturalism  and  AgHiis/i*  ;'fw,  ii.  p.  67. 


1 56  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

Causality,  far  from  constituting  the  essential  and  obligatory 
definition  of  the  causal  concept,  are  not  only  unnecessary 
in  themselves  but  implicitly  recognised  as  unnecessary  by 
Science  herself. 

The  first  link  in  this  triple  objection  to  the  idea  of 
a  causal  psychical  control  over  matter  consists  essentially 
in  the  assertion  that  as  we  cannot  measure  psychical 
events  as  we  can  physical  events,  there  is  no  possibility  of 
a  causal  nexus  between  them.  That  we  cannot  measure 
psychical  events  as  we  can  physical  events  needs  no 
proving  but,  as  Dr.  Sigwart  reminds  us,  "  even  in  the 
region  of  Natural  Science,  many  causal  connections  have 
been  accepted  as  existing  beyond  doubt,  and  regarded  as 
inductively  proved,  before  their  equations  were  known  ; 
that  friction  produces  heat  and  that  heat,  through  the 
expansion  of  steam,  gives  rise  to  motion,  was  ascertained 
before  Mayer  and  Joule  had  found  the  equations  which 
enabled  them  to  calculate  how  much  of  the  heat  produced 
changes  into  motion,  and  how  much  is  useless  for  the 
purposes  of  the  steam-engine."  ]  Similarly  if  we  take  the 
connection  between  an  effort  and  the  consequent  muscular 
activity,  noting  how  the  work  of  the  muscles  increases 
with  the  amount  of  exertion,  we  see  that  though  we 
cannot  measure  exactly  the  intensity  of  the  effort  made, 
we  have  still  as  much  a  right  to  consider  as  causal  the 
connection  between  effort  and  muscular  contraction  as  we 
had  the  original  connection  between  friction  and  heat. 

On  the  second  link  we  have  the  hoary  adage  "  like 
can  only  be  produced  by  like."  Dr.  Ward  has  helped  us 
to  a  better  grasp  of  what  this  adage  implies,  by  reviving 
the  old  Cartesian  distinction  between  the  causa  emincns 
and  the  causa  fornialis.  "  Thus  if  one  body  is  set  in 
motion  by  another,  the  motion  is  produced  fornialiter  in 
the  Cartesian  sense  ;  but  if  a  body  were  set  in  motion  by 
mind,  such  motion  would  be  produced  cininenfer"  '  Now 
this  heterogeneity  of  nature  which,  in  the  case  of  mind  and 
matter,  is  supposed  by  Naturalism  to  constitute  a  chasm 

1   /.ogle.  Ens;,  trans,  ii.  p.   384. 
-   I  Jr.  Ward,  .\\ituralism  and  Agnosticism,  ii.  p.  73. 


in  THE   PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM  157 

unspannable  by  any  causal  bridge,  is  characteristic  not 
only  of  eminent  but  also  of  formal  causes.  Is  it  not  Lotze 
who  reminds  us  that  the  action  between  two  material 
bodies,  if  we  only  look  deep  enough,  is  quite  as  mys- 
terious as  interaction  of  the  eminent  kind  ?  To  the 
physicist  who  looks  no  further  than  his  figures  there  is 
of  course  all  the  difference  in  the  world  between  the 
mathematically  calculable  character  of  the  former,  and 
the  incalculable  character  of  the  latter,  but  this  is  a 
question  that  concerns  merely  the  value  of  the  causal 
idea  for  physical  purposes,  not  the  nature  of  the  idea 
itself.  Moreover,  since  the  category  of  reciprocity  has 
come  into  vogue,  the  unit  of  causal  action  is  taken  to  be 
an  interaction  between  two  substances,  forces,  or  factors, 
and  the  question  as  to  the  respective  natures  of  agens 
and  fattens  regarded  as  irrelevant,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  causality,  agcns  and  pattens  developing  the 
interchange,  each  according  to  its  own  nature. 

The  third  link  introduces  us  to  that  mole-like  creature, 
the  "  Inconceivable,"  whose  grasp  of  facts  is  literally 
determined  by  the  reach  of  its  own  nose.  Now,  when 
reach  and  grasp  are  co-extensive,  it  generally  happens 
that  the  common  horizon  is  determined  by  the  limits  of 
sense-perception.  Thus  when  the  brilliant  imagination 
of  Prof.  James  is  baffled  by  the  fact  of  mental  activity, 
and  he  declares  that  mental  activity  is  probably  a  mere 
"  postulate "  because  no  amount  of  introspection  can 
possibly  reveal  it,  he  is  simply  identifying  the  inconceiv- 
able with  the  unintuitable.  But  if  this  unintuitable 
character  of  the  action  between  mind  and  matter  is  the 
obstacle  alluded  to  in  the  motto  on  the  third  link,  it  is 
an  objection  that  applies  in  another  and  more  funda- 
mental way  to  all  the  connections  which  thought  establishes. 
"  It  is  no  objection,"  writes  Sigwart  in  a  striking  passage, 
"  that  we  can  form  no  intuitable  picture  of  what  takes 
place,"  for  "  what  we  can  intuit  is  never  more  than  the 
event  and  the  linking  of  events,  never  the  fact  that  the 
one  is  grounded  by  the  other.  For  ordinary  conscious- 
ness the  connection  between  my  will  and  the  motion  of 


158  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

my  arm  is  just  as  intuitable,  i.e.  just  as  firmly  grounded 
in  immediate  experience  and  association,  as  the  trans- 
mission of  a  shock  from  one  billiard  ball  to  another  ;  it 
may  be,  indeed,  that  we  should  find  the  latter  even  less 
comprehensible,  if  we  had  not  been  previously  familiar 
with  our  power  of  thrusting  a  body  away  by  a  voluntary 
movement  of  the  hand."  1 

The  objection  of  inconceivability  may,  however,  bear, 
not  on  the  unintuitable  character  of  mind's  action  on 
matter,  but  on  its  intractability,  on  the  fact  that  science 
is  perfectly  nonplussed  by  it.  This  may  well  be,  but 
when  so  stated,  the  objection  ceases  to  be  directed  at  its 
former  mark.  It  no  longer  urges  that  mental  control  over 
matter  cannot  be  causal,  on  the  ground  that  it  is  unin- 
tuitable and  therefore  inconceivable,  but  only  lays  stress 
on  the  fact  that  this  admittedly  causal  relation  is  quite 
unanalysable.  Indeed  Dr.  Ward  himself  brings  forward 
this  objection.  "  It  must  be  candidly  confessed,"  he  says, 
"  that,  however  much  we  insist  on  the  fact  that  mind  can 
direct  and  control  inert  mass,  we  are  quite  unable  to 
analyse  the  process." '  This  is  only  too  true.  Had  it 
been  otherwise  the  objections  of  determinism  would  have 
admitted  of  being  attacked  directly,  instead  of  by  the 
indirect  methods  we  were  compelled  to  adopt. 

If  we  may  indulge  the  hope,  at  this  point  of  our 
inquiry,  that  the  objections  of  hard  determinism  have 
been  sufficiently  met,  and  that  the  concessions  of  soft 
determinism  have  been  shown  to  yield  more  than  the 
problem  of  Freedom  can  spare,  we  may,  I  think,  turn 
with  a  good  conscience  to  the  task  of  clearly  defining 
our  relations  with  Indeterminism,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes 
called,  Libertarianism. 

§  10.  Now  the  present  writer  must  frankly  confess  that 
of  the  two  objectors  to  mechanical  determinism,  the  flexible 
determinist  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  bold  indetcrminist 
on  the  other,  he  has  the  greater  sympathy  with  the 
latter,  and  considers  him  the  more  valuable  champion  of 


m      THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM     159 

free-will,  in  so  far  at  least  as  the  ground-work  of  the 
problem  is  concerned.  It  seems  impossible  not  to  agree 
with  Prof.  James  in  saying  that  once  a  man's  alleged 
spontaneity  is  completely  at  the  mercy  of  its  antecedents 
and  concomitants  it  is  logically  indifferent  what  these 
determinants  may  be,  whether  of  the  crow-bar  or  the 
velvety  type,  whether  they  constitute  a  nexus  of  cranial 
motions  and  dispositions,  or  a  nexus  of  motives,  character, 
and  circumstance.  Whether  the  predetermination  be 
physical  or  psychical  the  result  is  in  both  cases  the 
same  :  the  act  of  spirit  could  not  have  been  other  than 
it  was. 

It  is  under  the  heating  influence  of  this  conviction 
that  Professor  James  throws  the  deterministic  mechanism 
for  guiding  free-will  completely  overboard  and  commits 
himself  heroically  to  the  rudderless  steersmanship  of 
chance.  "  Determinism,"  he  says — and  under  the  title 
he  includes  the  soft  as  well  as  the  hard  species — "  denies 
the  ambiguity  of  future  volitions,  because  it  affirms  that 
nothing  future  can  be  ambiguous." ]  Indeterminism  on 
the  other  hand  affirms  this  ambiguity  unequivocally,  and 
gives  it  its  true  unequivocal  name  "  Chance."  "  Inde- 
terminate future  volitions,"  we  read,  "  mean  chance " 
"  Whoever  uses  the  word  chance,  instead  of  freedom," 
adds  our  author  some  pages  further  on,  "  squarely  and 
resolutely  gives  up  all  pretence  to  control  the  things  he 
says  are  free.  .  .  .  It  is  a  word  of  impotence,  and  is 
therefore  the  only  sincere  word  we  can  use,  if,  in  grant- 
ing freedom  to  certain  things,  we  grant  it  honestly,  and 
really  risk  the  game.  Any  other  word  permits  of 
quibbling,  and  lets  us,  after  the  fashion  of  the  soft  de- 
terminists,  make  a  pretence  of  restoring  the  caged  bird 
to  liberty  with  one  hand,  while  with  the  other  we 
anxiously  tie  a  string  to  its  leg  to  make  sure  it  docs 
not  get  beyond  our  sight." 

Now    it    is    hard    to    feel    ungratefully    towards    such 
refreshing    similes    as    these,    but    the    word    "  chance "    is 

uil.  i-mitled    The    II "/,'.' 


160  W.   R.  BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

surely  too  desperate.  Though  under  the  magical  touch 
of  the  great  psychologist  it  puts  on  the  beautiful  appeal 
of  a  free  gift — the  idea  of  chance  being  at  bottom,  so 
we  are  told,  exactly  the  same  thing  as  the  idea  of  gift, — 
even  this  cannot  conceal  its  utter  spiritual  nakedness. 
In  James's  own  words  "  it  is  a  word  of  impotence,"  and 
seems  to  betoken  a  spirit  not  our  own  that  works  for 
chaos,  a  comet-like  visitant  that  flaunts  its  own  caprice 
in  our  bewildered  faces  rather  than  the  essence  of  our 
own  selves  working  for  freedom  and  order. 

But,  comes  the  protest,  is  it  not  more  impotent  still 
to  sit  on  the  fence  lamenting  both  the  impotence  of  the 
spirit  fettered  by  a  flexible  fate  and  the  equally  im- 
potent condition  of  the  spirit  through  which,  as  through 
a  reed,  the  breath  of  Chance  bloweth  where  it  listeth, 
than  it  would  be  to  trust  oneself  resolutely  to  the  one 
issue  or  to  the  other  ?  Yes,  we  answer,  it  surely  is,  so 
long  as  we  are  limited  to  a  fictitious  partition  between 
two  equally  illogical  alternatives,  but  we  beg  leave  to 
protest  against  this  arbitrary  restriction  both  of  our 
problem  and  of  our  preference. 

And  here  we  touch  the  heart  of  the  whole  matter  : 
to  wit,  the  narrowness  of  the  issue  as  it  is  presented 
by  the  Indeterminist,  and  as  it  is  characteristically 
accepted  by  the  flexible  determinist.  The  Indeterminist, 
like  the  Britisher,  is  king  of  his  own  castle,  and  woe  to 
the  combatant  who  fights  the  battles  of  Freedom  within 
that  breezy  but  treacherous  enclosure.  Of  such  a  kind 
is  the  indeterministic  challenge  of  Professor  James.  The 
professor  chooses  his  own  position.  It  is  the  position  to 
which  his  physiological  researches  and  mechanical  pro- 
clivities have  led  him.  "  Future  human  volitions,"  he 
tells  us,  "  are  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  only  ambiguous 
things  we  are  tempted  to  believe  in  "  ;  '  consequently  we 
shall  be  greatly  helping  to  clear  up  the  real  issue  of 
this  free-will  controversy  as  well  as  greatly  simplifying 
the  whole  discussion  if  we  agree,  as  we  must,  to  restrict 
our  attention  to  some  specific  volitional  act.  "  Both 

1   James,   Text-book  of  Psychology,  p.  155. 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  161 

sides  admit  that  a  volition  has  occurred.  The  inde- 
terminists  say  another  volition  might  have  occurred  in 
its  place :  the  determinists  swear  that  nothing  could 
possibly  have  occurred  in  its  place." l  Are  you  then  a 
determinist  or  an  indeterminist,  for  there  is  really  no 
fence  to  sit  on,  and  you  must  be  one  or  the  other  ? 

Now  we  are  prepared  to  urge  that  the  triumph  of 
the  indeterminist  is  due  solely  to  the  willingness  of  his 
opponent  to  fight  him  on  his  own  issue.  Dr.  Stout,  for 
instance,  seems  to  have  fallen  into  this  trap  when  in  dis- 
cussing the  forming  of  a  decision,  he  says  :  "  At  this 
point  the  vexed  question  of  free-will,  as  it  is  called,  arises. 
According  to  the  libertarians,  the  decision,  at  least  in 
some  cases,  involves  the  intervention  of  a  new  factor,  not 
present  in  the  previous  process  of  deliberation,  and  not 
traceable  to  the  constitution  of  the  individual  as  deter- 
mined by  heredity  or  past  experience.  The  opponents 
of  the  libertarians  say  that  the  decision  is  the  natural 
outcome  of  conditions  operating  in  the  process  of 
deliberation  itself.  There  is,  according  to  them,  no  new 
factor  which  abruptly  emerges  like  a  Jack-in-the-box  in 
the  moment  of  deciding."2  So  stated,  we  say,  the  issue 
is  between  Indeterminism  and  Soft  Determinism,  and  we 
give  our  vote  in  favour  of  the  Jack-in-the-box. 

Fortunately,  however,  for  the  interests  of  freedom  the 
issue  is,  even  on  psychological  ground,  a  much  wider  one 
than  the  above  quotation  would  lead  one  to  suppose. 
Prof.  James  tells  us  that  the  consciousness  of  an  alternative 
being  also  possible,  a  consciousness  which  characterises 
effortless  volition  as  surely  as  it  does  free  effort  is,  in  the 
case  of  effortless  volition,  a  most  undoubted  delusion 
(cf.  Text-Book  of  Psychology,  p.  456).  We  hold,  on  the 
contrary  that  it  is  as  certainly  not  a  delusion,  and  that 
freedom  is  the  essence  not  only  of  self-conscious  volitional 
activity  but  of  consciousness  itself,  that  it  is  a  permanent 
attitude  of  the  conscious  subject,  consciousness  always 
implying  a  consciousness  of  the  subject's  relative  in- 

1   Jruws,    Text-book  of  1'syih'itixy,  p.    155. 
-  .Manual  of  i-'sych^L'^y,  p.  589. 

M 


162  W.  R.   BOYCE  GIBSON 


in 


dependence  in   relation   to  the  object  that  conditions  but 
does  not  necessarily  regulate  its  activity. 

§11.  We  have  now  reached  the  crux  of  our  whole 
inquiry.  The  ground  here  is  full  of  pitfalls  and  we  must 
proceed  as  warily  as  possible.  Our  aim  is  to  find  a  basis 
for  freedom  within  the  restricted  province  of  Psychology 
itself.  In  order  to  do  so  we  shall  find  it  necessary,  as  we 
hope  to  point  out  in  detail  in  the  second  part  of  this 
Essay,  to  draw  a  distinction  between  two  radically 
different  conceptions  of  the  purport  and  meaning  of 
Psychology,  only  one  of  which  is  qualified  to  discuss  or 
even  to  consider  the  question  of  freedom.  Each 
Psychology  starts  with  its  own  characteristic  statement 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  experience  it  proposes  to  examine. 
Each  makes  an  assumption  with  regard  to  the  nature  of 
that  experience,  an  assumption  which  determines  the 
whole  further  course  of  the  inquiry,  and  each  inquiry 
further  is  stamped  as  specifically  scientific — as  opposed  to 
philosophical  or  metaphysical — by  the  fact  that  it  makes 
this  assumption.  The  assumption  in  the  one  case  is 
deterministic,  the  individual's  experience  being  here 
considered  as  something  to  be  explained  independently 
of  the  personality  of  the  experient  himself,  to  be  explained 
briefly  by  the  so-called  laws  of  psychical  causality.  The 
assumption  in  the  other  case  must  be  non-deterministic 
and  allow  us  to  treat  the  individual's  experience  as  the 
experience  of  a  free  agent.  It  is  the  assumption  of  a 
more  inward  Psychology  than  the  other.  It  seeks  to 
define  the  relation  of  the  experient  to  that  which  he 
experiences  in  such  a  way  as  to  safeguard  at  one  and  the 
same  time  both  the  unity  of  that  experience  and  the 
relative  independence  of  the  free  agent  with  respect  to 
the  conditioning  elements  in  that  experience.  The 
assumption  then  of  the  more  inward  Psychology  is  that 
the  relation  between  the  experiencing  subject  and  the 
objects  which  condition  its  experience  is  that  of  a  duality 
in  unity — the  unity  consisting  in  the  permanent  indis- 
solubility  of  the  relation,  and  the  duality  in  that  co-opera- 
tive opposition  of  the  two  factors  within  the  unity  of 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  163 

experience  whereby    a  certain    relative    independence    is 
secured  to  each. 

With  the  metaphysical  validity  of  this  assumption  we 
are  not  concerned.  Taken  as  an  ultimate  metaphysical 
point  of  view  it  may  or  may  not  lead  us  to  monads  and 
other  haunts  of  subjective  idealism.  This  is,  indeed, 
matter  for  further  discussion,  but  it  lies  outside  the  limits 
of  a  psychological  inquiry.  What  we  are  especially 
concerned  to  point  out  is  that  once  we  accept  the 
assumption  as  a  valid  statement  of  the  relation  of  the 
factors  within  immediate  experience  we  ipso  facto  accept 
certain  facts  as  fundamental  for  the  Psychology  based  on 
that  assumption  :  for  to  accept  an  assumption  respecting 
the  nature  of  real  experience  is  just  to  posit  as  real 
whatever  facts  that  assumption  involves.  In  the  present 
instance  the  two  essential  facts  involved  are — (i  )  the  in- 
dissoluble tie  connecting  the  subjective  and  objective 
factors  in  experience — a  tie  such  that  the  former  can 
can  have  no  experience  save  through  the  latter  ;  and  (2°) 
the  relative  independence  of  both  factors,  the  freedom  of 
the  agent  and  the  conditioning  quality  of  the  objects. 

Accepting  this  assumption  then  as  truly  indicative  of 
the  fundamental  character  of  all  immediate  experience, 
whether  it  be  the  experience  of  reflection — the  so-called 
internal  experience — or  the  experience  of  sense-perception 
— the  so-called  external  experience, — we  have  freedom 
given  us  as  a  fact  which  can  only  be  disputed  by  dis- 
puting the  assumption.  Freedom,  then,  as  the  fundamental 
fact  of  this  more  inward  Psychology,  is  the  relative 
independence  of  the  subject  which  the  duality  of  Subject 
and  Object  in  the  unity  of  Experience  presupposes. 

Now  this  relative  independence  means  real  independ- 
ence, that  kind  of  independence  which  has  something  of 
the  nature  of  James's  "  original,"  "  spiritual,"  "  force,"  has 
its  independence,  in  fact,  without  its  indeterminism. 
What  this  independence  means  may  be  best  gathered  by 
considering  its  counterpart,  the  independence  of  the 
objective  factor  in  the  unity  of  Experience.  This  in- 
dependence of  the  object  —  an  independence  hardly 


1 64  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

sufficiently  realised,  perhaps,  by  Idealistic  monism,  though 
strongly  emphasised  by  Dr.  Stout — is  shown  in  at  least 
two  ways  : — 

i°.  By  the  way  in  which  it  conditions  subjective  activity 
at  every  turn  of  experience,  in  the  sense  of  limiting  it  in 
various  ways  ; 

2°.  By  the  fact  that  the  conquests  of  subjective  activity 
are  all  so  many  discoveries  of  the  nature  and  capabilities 
of  that  which  conditions  it,  as  well  as  of  its  own  nature 
and  capabilities.  The  results  of  such  activity  depend  on 
the  nature  of  the  conditioning  material  which  is  being 
manipulated.  The  number  of  stones  in  a  heap  does  not 
alter  with  the  counting  or  the  counters. 

But  to  discuss  in  any  detail  the  relative  independence 
of  object  or  subject  would  lead  us  too  far.  Our  concern 
is  just  to  point  out  that  the  problem  of  Freedom  can 
only  be  seen  aright  from  this  inner,  central  point  of  view, 
a  point  of  view  present  not  only  in  volitional  decisions, 
but  in  every  act  of  mind  whatsoever. 

§12.  We  are  now  in  a  position  to  point  out  in 
conclusion,  the  precise  relation  in  which  we  stand 
to  Indeterminism.  Indeterminism  as  represented  by 
Professor  James  errs,  in  our  opinion,  in  three  main 
ways : — 

i  .  It  sets  the  problem  of  Freedom  from  its  own 
restricted,  abstract  point  of  view.  It  starts  with  the 
deterministic  endeavour  to  eliminate  freedom  as  far  as 
possible  from  all  the  processes  of  mind.  At  last  it 
reaches  a  crux,  a  residual  psychic  phenomenon,  the 
phenomenon  of  effort,  when  Freedom  must  either  be 
pressed  out  of  the  universe  altogether,  and  Morality  and 
Religion,  to  say  nothing  of  Knowledge,  become  mere 
phantasms  of  feeling  and  fancy, — or  else  paraded  as  the 
absolutely  undetermined,  the  absolutely  unconditioned. 
Meanwhile  the  fundamental  inner  relation  of  all  immediate 
experience  is  ignored.  The  Trpwrov  -^eO&o?  of  Indeter- 
minism is  that  it  first  sets  the  problem  of  Freedom  on  a 
dualistic  basis,  and  so  can  see  no  tertium  quid  between 
the  absolutely  unconditioned  and  the  absolutely  predeter- 


in  THE  PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  165 

mined.  It  can  only  offer  us  the  choice  between  Fatalism 
and  Chance.  It  can  see  no  meaning  in  relative  inde- 
pendence. 

2°.  Closely  connected  with  this  prime  defect  we  have 
the  cognate  defect  of  the  Dcus  ex  machina.  This 
drawing  on  the  radically  discontinuous  is  a  weakness 
inherent  in  and  common  to  all  systems  that  are  too 
abstract  for  their  purpose  or  subject-matter.  "If  we 
are  to  understand  the  world  as  a  whole,"  says  Dr.  Ward, 
"  we  must  take  it  as  a  whole."  '  So  if  we  want  to  under- 
stand immediate  experience  as  a  whole  we  must  take  it 
as  a  whole  from  the  start,  and  in  so  doing,  bear  the 
possibility  of  freedom  with  us  from  the  beginning.  This 
is  a  point  of  fundamental  importance,  but  need  not  be 
insisted  on  any  further  in  the  present  connection. 

3  .  Closely  connected  again  with  this  defect,  is  the 
fact  that  Indeterminism  is  mere  Formalism.  For  it 
does  not  show  us  freedom  as  issuing  out  of  the  nature 
of  anything,  not  even  of  the  free  subject  himself,  still 
less  out  of  the  fundamental  character  of  immediate  ex- 
perience, but  as  starting  suddenly  upon  the  scene  like 
an  apparition  at  the  Egyptian  Hall. 

And  yet  despite  these  three  objections  it  may  be 
urged  against  us  in  conclusion  that  the  notion  of  relative 
independence,  inasmuch  as  it  connotes  real  independence, 
is  shared  alike  by  ourselves  and  the  Indeterminists. 
This,  it  will  be  said,  is  the  characteristic  mark  of  Inde- 
terminism, and  the  objections  brought  forward,  are  not 
so  much  objections  to  Indeterminism  itself,  as  to  a 
certain  species  of  Indeterminism  from  which  we  choose 
to  differ.  If  this  rejoinder  be  made,  if  it  be  thought  that 
the  objections  do  not  constitute  points  of  difference 
radical  enough  to  suggest  a  difference  truly  generic,  this 
further  discussion  must  be  relegated  to  metaphysics. 
Psychology — at  least  the  Psychology  we  have  in  view — 
accepts  a  relative  yet  real  independence  as  fundamentally 
present  in  the  central  fact  of  immediate  experience.  It 
is  for  metaphysics  to  analyse  this  independence  and  to 

1   \aturalism  and  Agnosticism,  ii.  p.  87. 


1 66  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

find  out,  if  it  can,  how  it  can  be  or  cannot  be  at  one  and 
the  same  time,  both  real  and  relative.  That  it  cannot 
be  indeterminate  and  is  certainly  relatively  independent, 
and  so  free  in  the  genuine  sense  of  the  word,  remains 
meanwhile  the  working  conviction  of  the  Psychology  of 
Immediate  Experience. 

PART  II.  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  FIRST  CAUSES:  A  FUN- 
DAMENTAL DISTINCTION  STATED  AND  APPLIED 

§13.  Perhaps  one  of  the  most  suggestive  facts  in  connec- 
tion with  the  present  state  of  Psychology,  is  the  marked 
way  in  which  it  holds  aloof  from  the  problem  of  Freedom. 
"  Psychology,  like  every  other  science,"  writes  Hoffding, 
"  must  be  deterministic,  that  is  to  say,  it  must  start  from 
the  assumption  that  the  causal  law  holds  good  even  in 
the  life  of  the  will,  just  as  this  law  is  assumed  to  be  valid 
for  the  remaining  conscious  life  and  for  material  nature, 
If  there  are  limits  to  this  assumption,  they  will  coincide 
with  the  limits  to  Psychology." ]  James  speaks  in  a 
precisely  similar  manner  though  with  less  right,  seeing 
that  the  form  in  which  he  states  his  theory  of  free  effort 
brings  it  inevitably  within  the  scope  of  psychological 
enquiry.  The  theory,  as  is  well  known,  concerns  simply 
"  duration  and  intensity  "  of  mental  effort.  "  The  question 
of  fact  in  the  free-will  controversy,"  he  writes,  "  is  extremely 
simple.  It  relates  solely  to  the  amount  of  effort  of 
attention  which  we  can  at  any  time  put  forth.  Are  the 
duration  and  intensity  of  this  effort  fixed  functions  of  the 
object,  or  are  they  not?"  Still,  despite  this  purely 
psychological  turn  which  Professor  James  gives  to  the 
problem,  he  is  quite  decided  that  the  question  of  free- 
will should  be  kept  out  of  Psychology.  "  Psychology  as  a 
would-be  '  science,'  must,  like  every  other  science,  postulate 
complete  determinism  in  its  facts,  and  abstract  consequently 
from  the  effects  of  free-will  even  if  such  a  force  exists."3  The 
free  effort  of  Indeterminism  is  "  an  independent  variable," 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  167 

and  "  wherever  there  are  independent  variables,1  there 
science  stops."  •  Hence,  he  adds,  "  So  far  as  our  volitions 
may  be  independent  variables,  a  scientific  Psychology 
must  ignore  that  fact,  and  treat  of  them  only  so  far  as 
they  are  fixed  functions."  3 

Now  the  question  before  us  is  the  following  : — Is  this 
deterministic  assumption  a  necessary  postulate  of  scientific 
inquiry  ?  Are  we,  as  Psychologists,  compelled  to  ignore 
the  question  of  freedom  ?  If  so,  what  conceivable  relation 
can  there  be  between  Psychology  and  the  problem  of 
Freedom  ?  By  way  of  answering  this  question,  we  propose 
to  make  a  distinction  between  what  we  hold  to  be  two 
radically  different  treatments  of  the  Science  of  Psychology, 
each  of  which  has  its  own  separate  problem  and  method 
of  solving  it.  We  propose  to  state  this  distinction  as  briefly 
and  plainly  as  we  can,  to  develop  it,  and  lastly  to  apply  it  to 
the  solution  of  certain  fundamental  confusions  that  still 
attach  to  the  conception  of  Psychology  as  a  Natural 
Science. 

i.  STATEMENT  OF  THE  DISTINCTION 

There  is  at  present  a  fruitful,  highly-developed,  and 
rapidly  self-differentiating  Science  usually  known  as 
Empirical  Psychology.  In  its  methods  and  aims  it 
completely  resembles  the  procedure  of  the  physical 
Sciences.  It  shares  the  same  postulate — that  of  a 
universal  determinism  —  and  hence  also  the  same  con- 
ception of  what  is  to  constitute  a  legitimate  explanation. 
In  so  far  as  such  method  falls  short  of  the  ideal  method 
of  the  physical  model,  such  deficiency  is  due,  not  to  any 
lack  of  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  the  method  or  the  postulate, 


James's  conception  of  free  effori 


'bid.  p.  457- 


168  W.   R.   BOYCE   GIBSON  in 

but  to  the  intractability  of  the  subject-matter.  Thus  Dr. 
Sigwart,  after  laying  down  the  inductive  method  as  the 
ideal  method  even  in  Psychology — in  default  of  the 
deductive — adds  the  following  words  : — "  A  process  quite 
parallel  to  the  induction  of  Natural  Science  is,  however, 
opposed  partly  by  the  impossibility  of  measuring  psychical 
phenomena,  partly  by  the  variability  of  psychical  subjects 
in  consequence  of  their  development,  and  partly  by  the 
great  differences  between  individuals  which  are  to  some 
extent  connected  with  this  development.  Except  there- 
fore within  the  sphere  of  Psychophysics  in  the  narrower 
sense,  we  cannot  hope  to  establish  exact  general  laws,  by 
which  the  concrete  temporal  course  of  successive  events 
in  Consciousness  would  be  determined  on  all  sides  in  an 
unmistakable  way."  l 

It  is  from  the  point  of  view  of  this  purely  Inductive 
Psychology  that  the  deterministic  assumption  becomes  a 
necessity  of  method.  All  Inductive  Sciences  presuppose 
determinism  2  for  the  very  simple  and  general  reason  that 
they  are  concerned  with  the  discovery  of  lazvs,  i.e.,  of 
uniformities  descriptive  of  the  actions  and  interactions  of 
the  material  considered.  Hence  from  the  point  of  view 
of  Empirical  Psychology,  Hoffding  is  perfectly  justified  in 
stating  that  the  limits  of  psychical  determinism  would 
mark  the  limits  of  Psychology. 

But,  as  we  have  already  pointed  out  in  the  first  Part  of 
this  Essay,  this  purely  inductive  treatment  of  Psychology 
is  not  the  only  conceivable  form  of  treatment,  nor  is  it, 
indeed,  that  form  of  treatment  which  the  peculiar  subject- 
matter  of  Psychology  essentially  demands.  There  is  the 
inner,  vital,  truly  causal  point  of  view,  a  point  of  view  not 
only  individualistic  but  inward,  which,  accepting  as  its 
fundamental  assumption  the  duality  of  subject  and  object 

1   /-<>CvV,  HUE;,  trans,  ii.  p.  374. 

-  Throughout  this  inquiry  we  conceive  the  Inductive  Method  specifically  as  a 
Method  founded  on  the  Mechanical  postulate,  the  postulate  of  universal  de- 
terminism. This  postulate  represents  the  demand  which  science  makes  for 
Mechanical  Explanations,  the  test  or  standard  of  legitimate  explanation.  It  is 
surely  not  untrue  to  affirm  that  if  a  suggested  explanation  violates  this  postulate 
of  mechanical  connection,  Science  will  have  none  of  it.  The  essential  limitation 
of  this  method  and  its  Postulate,  we  take  to  be  this,  that  it  doe<  not  and  cannot 
recognise  explanation  iv  final  causes,  in  any  genuine  sense  of  the  term. 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  169 

within  the  unity  of  experience,  accepts  with  it  the  freedom 
or  relative  independence  of  the  subject  as  its  fundamental 
fact.  The  distinction,  then,  that  we  propose  to  make 
is  that  between  the  now  well-established  Inductive 
Psychology,  on  the  one  hand,  and  this  inward  Science  of 
Free  Agency  on  the  other,  and  the  first  distinctive  feature 
of  difference  between  these  two  Psychologies  we  take  to 
be  this,  that  whilst  the  Science  of  Free  Agency  accepts 
the  capacity  for  real  freedom  as  its  fundamental  fact,  the 
Inductive  Psychology  unreservedly  accepts  the  determin- 
istic assumption  as  its  only  possible  working  postulate. 
A  second  fundamental  difference  between  the  two  treat- 
ments, a  difference  we  cannot  here  do  more  than  indicate, 
is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  whereas  Inductive 
Psychology  aims  at  discovering  laws  and  combinations  of 
laws,  and  at  tracing  uniformities  within  the  psychical  life, 
the  newer  —  or  the  older — Psychology  aims  at  showing 
how  the  free  causal  agency  with  which  it  is  primarily 
concerned  determines  its  own  development.  Were  the 
term  self-determination  less  ambiguous  and  difficult  than 
it  is,  it  might  not  be  amiss  to  characterise  this  inward 
treatment  of  the  psychical  life  as  the  Psychology  of  Self- 
Determination  ;  but  as  this  well-worn  expression  is 
somewhat  too  pliant  for  purposes  of  distinction,  the 
more  startling  though  by  no  means  desperate  name  of 
"  the  Psychology  of  first  causes "  would,  we  think,  be 
found  to  hit  the  point  more  firmly  and  more  truly.  We 
must  leave  the  title  to  defend  itself  in  the  pages  that 
follow,  noting  simply  in  the  meantime  that  any  difficulties 
which  the  term  "  first  causes "  may  awaken  are  not  for 
Psychology  to  solve.  It  is  not  the  business  of  Psycho- 
logy to  make  easy  the  task  of  Metaphysics.  Its  duty  is 
to  state  its  assumptions  as  to  the  nature  of  individual 
experience,  accept  as  real  the  facts  which  that  assumption 
necessitates,  and  then  to  push  boldly  forward  with  a 
sound  conscience  on  its  own  lines.  Let  us  now  proceed 
to  a  more  developed  statement  of  what  is  assumed  in  a 
Psychology  of  first  causes,  and  to  a  more  definite  treat- 
ment of  its  relation  to  Inductive  Psychology. 


1 70  W.   R.  BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

2.  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  DISTINCTION 

§  14.  I  propose  to  start  with  the  following  definition. 
Psychology  is  the  Science  of  Immediate  Experience 
considered  primarily  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
experient  and  only  secondarily  from  the  point  of  view 
of  an  external  observer.  This  definition,  it  will  be 
noticed,  differs  apparently  from  the  customary  definition 
of  a  Science  in  that  it  is  so  worded  as  to  include  not  only 
the  statement  of  the  subject-matter  of  the  science  but  also 
the  point  of  view  from  which  that  subject-matter  is  to  be 
regarded.  The  inclusion  of  point  of  view  within  a 
definition  may  seem  unusual  and  require  justification.  It 
is  unusual,  no  doubt,  to  define  a  Science  in  terms  of  its 
point  of  view  but  this  is  not  because  the  statement  of  the 
point  of  view  is  unessential  to  the  definition,  but  simply 
because  it  is  always  presupposed  that  the  point  of  view  is 
that  of  the  external  observer,  of  an  observer,  that  is,  whose 
method  is  conditioned  by  the  decisive  fact  that  he 
approaches  his  data  from  the  outside.  If  Geology  and 
Psychology  had  been  the  only  two  sciences  ever  studied 
we  should  have  had  to  include  within  our  definition  of 
Geology  the  statement  that  the  point  of  view  taken 
throughout  was  exclusively  that  of  the  external  observer. 

The  objection,  however,  will  probably  be  raised  that  as 
the  definition  of  a  Science  includes  as  a  rule  only  the 
statement  of  its  subject-matter,  the  additional  reference  to 
a  point  of  view  is,  to  say  the  least,  gratuitous  unless  it  can 
be  shown  that  the  subject-matter  will  be  differently 
treated  according  as  the  one  point  of  view  or  the  other  is 
taken  ;  and  the  objection  may  be  supported  by  the 
contention  that  whether  the  point  of  view  taken  be  that 
of  the  experient  or  of  the  external  observer,  the  mode  of 
treatment  will  always  remain  the  same,  consisting,  in 
short,  in  the  method  of  Scientific  Induction.  Now  this 
contention  in  so  far  as  it  insists  on  no  clement  being 
admitted  into  the  definition  of  a  science  which  docs  not 
directly  or  indirectly  serve  to  specify  its  subject-matter, 
must  be  accepted  as  valid,  and  it  is  only  our  conviction 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  171 

that  the  view-point  in  this  case  does  affect  the  treatment 
of  the  subject-matter  that  has  determined  its  inclusion. 
The  statement,  however,  that  scientific  induction  is  the 
only  conceivable  method  which  can  do  justice  to  the  facts 
of  the  mental  life  is  the  very  statement  we  are  bent  on 
disputing.  Scientific  Induction  is  a  method  born  of  the 
needs  of  the  physical  sciences,  a  method  which  aims  at 
unifying  the  phenomena  of  a  science  within  an  organised 
system  of  laws  of  an  essentially  hypothetical  character  ; 
it  is  in  short  a  method  that  expresses  not  the  necessary 
mode  of  activity  of  mind  as  such  in  the  presence  of  a 
given  subject-matter  but  its  mode  of  procedure  when 
treating  this  subject-matter  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
external  observer  whether  in  sense-perception  or  in 
introspection.  For  when  we  say  that  the  point  of  view 
from  which  the  experient  considers  his  own  immediate 
experience  fundamentally  determines  the  way  in  which 
that  experience  shall  be  treated,  we  have  not  mere 
Introspection,  as  such,  in  mind.  Introspection,  as  the 
name  implies,  is  no  doubt  a  psychological  point  of  view,  a 
form  of  observation,  and  not,  as  it  is  often  loosely  called 
a  "  source "  or  a  "  method,"  but  the  method  adopted  in 
Introspection,  may  as  assuredly  be  that  of  scientific 
induction  as  is  the  method  adopted  in  Comparative 
Psychology.  The  point  of  view  of  the  experient  is  in  fact 
not  to  be  identified  with  that  of  the  inner  spectator  in 
Introspection,  but  is  the  point  of  view  of  one  who, 
approaching  his  subject-matter  from  the  inside,  does  not 
pass  from  disconnected  data  to  uniformities  that  combine 
them,  from  the  ceaseless  flux  of  conscious  states  to  the 
laws  by  which  it  is  ordered,  but  from  the  very  outset 
starts  with  the  unities  of  mind,  and  from  the  vital 
interests  and  aims  which  express  them.  For  the 
experient  the  real  fundamentals  are  not  fact  and  law  but 
appetite  and  its  satisfaction,  or  more  specifically,  to  use 
Dr.  Stout's  own  expression,"  the  self-realisation  of  conscious 
purpose."  In  a  word  it  is  the  essentially  vital  point  of 
view.  Let  me  give  an  illustration  which  I  trust  will  not 
be  pressed  too  far.  The  participators  in  an  orchestral 


i;2  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

concert  may  be  divided  into  three  classes,  those  who  are 
outside  the  walls  of  the  concert  hall  and  have  at  best  only 
the  sounds  at  their  disposal  to  symbolise  what  is  going  on 
within  the  walls,  the  ticket-holders  inside  who  not  only  hear 
the  sounds  but  see  how  they  are  being  produced,  and 
finally  the  performers  themselves  who  are  not  only  aware 
of  the  sounds  and  the  processes  that  give  them,  but 
inwardly  realise  the  hidden  unities  of  purpose  and 
interests  of  which  all  else  is  but  the  means  or  the 
expression.  Thus  at  any  moment  of  the  performance  the 
outer  spectator,  we  will  say,  experiences  a  sound,  the 
inner  spectator  in  addition  the  workings  to  which  the 
sound  is  due,  and  the  performer  himself  the  inspiration  of 
of  the  musical  purpose  and  interest  which  is  the  source 
and  fountain-head  of  all  that  is  happening. 

No  one  can  use  the  term  "  vital  "  nowadays  without 
some  word  of  apology  or  at  least  of  explanation.  Mine 
need  only  be  brief.  If  life  and  mind  are  treated  as 
coextensive,  a  hypothesis  by  no  means  disproved  by  the 
facts,  and  if  life  further  is  not  treated  as  an  impenetrable 
tertium  quid  between  matter  and  mind,  but  merely  as 
that  which  makes  mental  development  possible  and  gives 
it  its  true  inward  quality,  then  the  term  "  vital  "  fulfils  a 
function  which  no  other  term  can  fulfil  so  well.  That  it 
should  have  no  specific  bearing  on  the  explanations  of  the 
physiologist  or  biologist  is  due  simply  to  the  fact  that  it 
is  purposely  and  profitably  ignored  by  all  investigators 
who  do  not  need  to  consider  mind  as  an  influential  factor, 
or  to  recognise  any  selective  agency  other  than  that  of 
natural  selection.  But  a  science  of  immediate  experience 
is  in  a  different  position,  and  psychologists  who  neglect 
the  vital  factor  with  all  that  it  involves,  are  mere  inner 
spectators,  not  experients,  and  can  at  best,  like  Wundt, 
reach  the  conception  of  mental  development  as  that  of  a 
very  complex  system  of  reciprocal  interactions  between 
the  parts  of  the  process. 

The  spectators'  points  of  view,  with  their  methods  of 
scientific  induction,  arc  of  course  as  essential  for  the  full 
development  of  psychological  science  as  is  the  more  vital 


in  THE  PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  173 

point  of  view,  but  they  do  not  seize  the  subject  at  its 
heart.  They  miss  the  inner  significance  of  mental 
development  as  a  continuous  acquisition  of  meanings  and 
values,  and  they  miss  the  true  explanatory  syntheses  that 
dominate  the  development,  finding  them  not  in  the 
fundamental  factors  or  motives  of  that  development  but 
in  laws  of  psychical  or  physical  causality.  Let  us  refer 
again  to  the  case  of  Wundt.  Wundt,  like  Fouillee,  insists 
on  the  notion  of  Psychology  as  a  science  of  immediate 
experience,  as  a  science  that  starts,  not  from  a  number 
of  generalised  concepts,  but  from  the  actuality  of  the 
individual  mind  itself.  But  while  insisting  on  the  in- 
dependent nature  of  psychical  processes,  he  has  not 
shown  how  this  independence  of  nature  gives  proof  of  its 
independence  in  determining  mental  development,  but  he 
has  treated  the  development  analytically  after  a  rigorously 
inductive  fashion.  The  main  problem  which  mental 
development  offers  to  the  psychologist,  according  to 
Wundt,  is  the  discovery  of  the  laws,  the  psychical  laws, 
whereby  its  uniformities  and  connections  may  be  seized  ; 
and  these  laws  differ  from  the  simpler  laws  of  relation  and 
combination  that  characterise  psychical  activity  in  com- 
plexity only,  the  interconnection  with  which  they  are 
concerned  being  of  a  more  intricate  and  comprehensive 
kind.  Thus  instead  of  showing  how  development  is  deter- 
mined through  its  own  vital  syntheses  Wundt  lays  stress 
on  certain  fundamental  forms  which  such  determination 
takes.  It  is  the  spectator's  and  not  the  vital  point  of  view. 
It  would  indeed  be  a  step  in  the  direction  of  greater 
clearness  were  these  so-called  laws  of  mental  development 
referred  to  not  as  "  laws  "  but  as  "  forms."  The  laws  of 
"  mental  growth,"  "  heterogeny  of  ends,"  and  of  "  develop- 
ment towards  opposites  "  as  treated  by  Wundt,  arc  they 
not  rather  descriptive  forms  affording  a  comprehensive 
bird's-eye  view  over  the  phenomena  of  mental  develop- 
ment, than  "  causal  laws  of  mental  development  "  ?  The 
reason  given  for  calling  them  "  causal  "  laws  is  that  they 
are  found  by  a  process  of  induction  precisely  similar  to 
that  employed  in  discovering  the  causal  laws  of  Nature. 


174  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

"Just  as  the  nature  of  physical  causality,"  says  Wundt, 
"can  be  revealed  to  us  only  in  the  fundamental  laws  of 
Nature,  so  the  only  way  we  have  of  accounting  for  the 
characteristics  of  psychical  causality  is  to  abstract  certain 
fundamental  laws  of  psychical  phenomena  from  the 
totality  of  psychical  processes." 

Now  this  reasoning  is  to  my  mind  quite  unsound. 
Granting  that  the  nature  of  physical  causality  can  be 
revealed  to  us  only  in  the  fundamental  laws  of  Nature, 
we  must  find  the  reason  for  this  in  the  fact  that  we  are 
here  dealing  with  that  aspect  of  experience  which  shows 
us  change  and  the  occasions  of  change  in  abstraction 
from  any  inner  activities  that  may  be  ultimately  re- 
sponsible for  the  change.  But  in  inward  experience 
what  we  are  most  intimately  aware  of  is  precisely  the 
causal  activity  we  abstract  from  when  we  view  the  object 
from  the  outside.  Here  we  are  not  compelled  by  the 
nature  of  the  case  to  be  content  with  the  revelation  of 
cause  in  the  observable  form  of  law,  but  are  at  liberty  to 
study  causes  at  first  hand,  and  the  processes  whereby  they 
conspire  to  determine  their  own  effects.  It  is  not  true 
then  that  the  only  way  we  have  of  accounting  for  the 
characteristics  of  psychical  causality  is  to  do  as  Wundt 
bids  us, — 'Standing  over  our  inner  experiences,  as  it  were, 
with  a  view  to  threading  them  together  as  best  we  may, 
and  calling  the  result  "  laws  of  psychical  causality."  We 
are  prepared,  on  the  contrary,  to  maintain  that  such  laws 
are  not  laws  of  psychical  causality  at  all,  any  more  than 
the  laws  of  change  and  interchange  of  inert  masses  are 
laws  of  physical  causality.  All  causes  are  first  causes. 
Otherwise  they  are  mere  effects  within  an  endless  chain 
of  events,  and  have  no  determinative  power  whatsoever  : 
they  transmit,  but  do  not  determine.  Where,  as  in 
abstract  Physics  we  are  restricted  to  the  continuous 
changes  of  an  energy  that  has  neither  beginning  nor  end, 
transforming  itself  indefinitely  within  the  two  endless 
continua  of  Space  and  Time,  there  is  no  place  for 
causality,  but  only  for  varying  effects  due  to  varying 
relations  of  position,  speed,  etc.,  between  the  moving 


in  THE   PROBLEM  OF   FREEDOM  175 

masses.  The  world  for  Physics  is  one  vast  continuous 
effect  taking  the  form  of  change,  and  its  problem  is  to 
discover  the  laws  not  which  regulate  or  determine,  but 
according  to  which  are  regulated  or  determined,  these 
never-ceasing  changes. 

It  seems  then  a  very  questionable  plan  to  import  a 
pis-aller  method  of  scientific  procedure  from  a  sphere 
where  it  seems  the  only  one  available,  into  another  where 
causal  methods  in  the  genuine  sense  of  the  word  are  at 
once  suggested  by  the  facts  themselves.  Psychology 
will  of  course  always  require  those  methods  that  seek 
for  law  in  default  of  cause,  as  so  much  of  the  material 
it  takes  in  hand  presents  just  those  features  which  have 
compelled  the  physicist  in  his  own  sphere  to  restrict  his 
attention  to  laws  of  change.  But  this  is  no  reason  why 
experience  in  what  is  most  vital  and  essential  to  it  should 
not  be  treated  according  to  its  own  nature,  instead  of 
having  its  inwardly  experienced  development  brought 
under  the  same  forms  of  inductive  procedure  as  are 
adopted  when  discussing  the  development  of  a  nebula, 
say,  into  a  system  of  suns  and  worlds.  In  the  latter 
case  we  can  discuss  the  development  only  from  the  out- 
side, whereas  in  the  case  of  self-experience,  we  have  to 
get  outside  of  ourselves  before  we  can  take  up  the 
spectator's  point  of  view. 

What  then  is  this  truly  causal  procedure  proper  to 
the  vital  view-point,  and  to  the  vital  view-point  only  ? 
If  we  are  debarred  from  law  are  we  not  debarred  from 
order  as  well,  and  even  from  intelligibility?  In  answer 
to  this  we  may  say  in  the  first  place  that  if  law  is  defined 
as  the  means  whereby  order  and  intelligibility  are  intro- 
duced within  the  flow  of  events,  the  choice  can  only  lie- 
between  law  and  nescience.  But  a  synthesis  that  de- 
termines some  drift  of  mental  development  is  not  a  mere 
law  descriptive  of  the  process  it  both  induces  and  directs 
but  is  the  cause  of  that  process  in  the  only  true  sense  of 
the  word,  that  namely  of  a  cause  in  action,  working  out 
its  own  ends  in  conformity  with  its  own  nature.  The 
nature  of  a  causal  agency  is  one  thing,  laws  which 


176  W.  R.  BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

describe  the  conditions  under  which  that  activity  works 
quite  another :  the  former  may  be  best  described  as  a 
synthetic  principle  that  explains  change,  the  latter  as  a 
description  of  some  constant  and  general  feature  charac- 
teristic of  this  change.  It  would  not  be  amiss,  I  think, 
were  we  to  go  a  step  farther  than  we  went  just  now  in 
advocating  the  distinction  between  "  law "  and  "  form," 
and  suggest  that  the  word  principle  be  restricted  to  this 
strictly  causal,  synthetic  point  of  view,  so  that  all  principles 
should  be  by  definition  principles  of  the  nature  and 
action  of  first  causes  and  synthetic  agencies.  We  should 
then  be  able  to  say  of  every  principle,  that  it  was  not  a 
law,  or  preferably,  a  form,  and  of  every  law  that  it  was 
not  a  principle,  but  only  the  statement  of  some  descriptive 
uniformity.  We  should  talk  then  of  the  Form,  or  Law, 
or  Theory,  but  not  of  the  Principle,  of  Gravitation,  we 
should  talk  of  the  principle  of  subjective  selection,  so  far 
as  by  that  we  referred  to  a  synthetic  causal  activity  of 
Consciousness,  but  of  the  form,  law,  or  theory  of  natural 
selection. 

§  i  5.  That  Consciousness  is  essentially  a  synthesis  has 
been  since  Kant's  day  a  widely  accepted  doctrine  of  Psycho- 
logy,1 but  it  plays  even  in  the  most  modern  text-books  a 
formal  rather  than  a  causal  role.  The  circumstances  under 
which  the  problem  arose,  are  no  doubt  largely  responsible 
for  this.  It  was  set  by  Hume  in  such  a  way  as  to  bring 
to  the  front  the  conception  of  the  Unity  of  Consciousness 
as  a  combining  form  rather  than  as  a  causal  agency. 
Either  conception  would  have  served  to  give  that  co- 
herency to  the  flow  of  Consciousness  which  the  problem 
required  for  its  solution.  But  the  former  was  given 
and  has  prevailed  ever  since.  Let  us  consider  Hoffding's 
treatment  of  the  Unity  of  Consciousness  by  way  of 
illustration.  "  The  peculiarity  of  the  phenomena  of 
Consciousness  as  contrasted  with  the  subject-matter  of 
the  science  of  external  nature,"  he  says,  " .  .  .  is  precisely 
that  inner  connection  between  the  individual  elements 
in  virtue  of  which  they  apppear  as  belonging  to  one  and 

1   Cf. ,  e.g.,  Huffding,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  pp.  47,  48,  49,  117,  138,  140. 


in  THE  PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM  177 

the  same  subject."1  This  is,  as  Hoffding  himself  confesses, 
a  purely  formal  conception,  but  it  is  not  therefore  barren. 
For  it  is  not  only  the  fundamental  form,  but  also  the 
fundamental  condition "  or  presupposition  of  conscious 
activity  as  we  know  it.  Thus  "  it  is  only  because  one 
and  the  same  self  is  active  in  all  opposing  elements  that 
their  mutual  relation  comes  into  Consciousness."  J  More- 
over this  formal  character  of  the  Unity  of  Consciousness 
which  distinguishes  it  from  all  material  connections  is 
sufficient  to  disprove  as  a  Psychological  absurdity  any 
attempt  to  combine  two  egos  or  Consciousnesses  into  one 
ego.4  Finally  this  formal  unity  is  not  only  the  general 
form  and  presupposition  of  all  conscious  activity  but  runs 
like  a  connecting  thread  through  all  the  specific  forms 
which  that  activity  takes.  "  The  nature  of  the  ego  is 
manifested  in  the  combination  of  the  sensations,  ideas,  and 
feelings,  and  in  the  forms  and  laws  of  the  combination."5 

This  formal  conception  of  the  Unity  of  Consciousness 
has  no  doubt  its  conveniences.  It  is  economical  and 
easily  understood.  But  it  is  an  abstract,  non-psycho- 
logical conception,  and  has  proved  quite  as  misleading 
as  it  has  proved  useful.  Hoffcling,  indeed,  realises  that 
there  is  a  real  aspect  of  the  Unity  of  Consciousness  as 
well  as  a  formal  aspect.  "  The  form  of  Consciousness," 
he  says,  "  is  common  to  all  conscious  beings  ;  individuality 
consists  in  the  definite  content  which  is  embraced  by  the 
formal  unity,"  °  consists  essentially,  in  fact,  in  a  dominant 
vital  feeling  ;  '  but  even  as  a  feeling  its  function  is 
simply  that  of  keeping  the  concrete  life  of  the  individual 
together,  a  unifying,  combining  function.  But  it  is  at 
least  not  abstract,  and  that  is  a  distinct  gain  to  the 
psychological  value  of  the  conception. 

(  hiite  recently  a  definite  attempt,  has  been  made  to 
emphasise  the  causal  aspect  of  this  synthetic  activity  of 
Consciousness.  I  allude  to  Dr.  Stout's  conception  of 
conative  unity  or  unity  of  interest.  It  supplies  a  triple 


i38 


178  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

need.  In  the  i°  place  it  is  a  real  vital  unity,  consisting 
not  in  a  mere  feeling  but  containing  all  the  elements 
that  enter  into  a  complete  attitude  of  Consciousness : 
appetition,  feeling-tone,  and  attentive  or  cognitive  aspect  ; 
(2°)  it  is  a  causal  agency,  not  a  mere  combining  activity  ; 
(3°)  it  is  a  workable  conception  of  the  synthetic  unity 
of  Consciousness. 

Now  I  do  not  propose  to  develop  in  any  way  these 
three  notable  contributions  to  the  science  of  Psychology. 
There  is,  however,  one  remark  I  should  wish  to  make. 
Readers  of  the  "  Manual "  will,  I  think,  discover  that 
though  there  is  no  explicit  recognition  in  those  pages 
of  the  distinction  we  have  been  attempting  to  draw,  that 
the  distinction  nevertheless  exists,  and  is  stated  if  not 
explicitly,  yet  in  principle.  For  Dr.  Stout  maintains 
that  the  central  interest  of  Psychology  consists  in  the 
study  of  mental  development  as  the  self-realisation  of 
conscious  purpose  in  "  the  study  of  conscious  endeavour, 
as  a  factor  in  its  own  fulfilment "  and  shows  how 
continuity  of  interest  and  of  attention  is  the  principle 
which,  when  articulately  developed  under  the  impetus 
given  by  objects,  is  the  determinative  explanatory 
principle  in  both  reproduction  and  association.  More- 
over, and  this  seems  most  important,  Dr.  Stout,  following 
up  Mr.  Bradley's  famous  distinction  in  the  opening  pages 
of  his  Principles  of  Logic,  has  presented  this  mental 
development  to  us  as  consisting  essentially  in  acquisition 
of  meaning.  The  stages  in  mental  development  are 
represented  as  "  stages  in  the  evolution  of  meaning 
towards  definiteness  and  explicitncss." :  Now  there 
seems  ground  for  maintaining  that  just  in  so  far  as 
mental  development  is  presented  in  the  light  of  an 
evolution  of  meanings  and  values,  it  is  presented  from 
the  truly  inward  point  of  view  and  from  the  point  of 
view  which  can  alone  furnish  a  living  and  a  suitable 
psychological  basis  for  Ethics,  /Esthetics,  and  the  Theory 


MI      THE  PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM     179 

of  Knowledge  in  their  inward  aspects.  The  attempt 
made  in  this  Essay  towards  establishing  a  certain 
fundamental  distinction  of  psychological  treatment,  may 
accordingly  be  viewed  as  an  addendum  to  the  Manual, 
for  it  was  suggested  by  reflecting  on  the  necessary 
implications  of  the  Theory  of  Conation  as  elaborated 
in  that  important  work. 

We  come  now  to  our  last  point.  We  have  stated 
and  developed  under  such  inspiration  as  we  have  already 
acknowledged  what  we  believe  to  be  a  fundamental  and 
important  distinction.  It  remains  for  us  to  show  that 
the  distinction  is  not  an  arbitrary,  manufactured  product, 
but  a  fruitful  and  explanatory  principle. 

3.   APPLICATION  OF  THK  DISTINCTION 

^  1 6.  Psychology,  we  are  told,  is  a  Natural  Science. 
Let  us  examine  this  commonplace  statement  and  see 
whether  it  is  after  all  quite  so  satisfactory  and  free  from 
ambiguity  as  at  first  sight  it  appears. 

It  is  generally  asserted  or  understood,  in  the  first 
place  that,  as  a  Natural  Science,  Psychology  must  be 
concerned  both  with  describing  and  explaining  the 
subject-matter  of  which  it  treats,  but  when  we  come  to 
close  quarters  with  this  distinction  between  the  descriptive 
and  the  explanatory  functions  of  the  science  we  meet 
with  strange  inconsequences  that  leave  us  with  a  mind 
all  in  confusion.  Thus  we  find  Prof.  James  starting  with 
the  conception  of  Psychology  as  a  Natural  Science  with 
an  explanatory  function  to  fulfil,1  and  closing  with  the 
conviction  that  it  is  after  all  only  a  Natural  History" 
and  cannot  do  more  than  describe  the  states  of 
Consciousness  it  set  out  to  explain  ;  whilst,  on  the  other 
hand,  Dr.  Stout  himself,  after  telling  us  blankly  at  the 
outset  that  Psychology  "has  only  to  do  with  the  natural 
history  of  subjective  processes  as  they  occur  in  time,"  ' 
heroically  proceeds  to  furnish  us  with  the  very  explanatory 
agencies  that  are  needed  to  brinir  true  science  into 


1 8o  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON 


in 


history  and  justify  the  claim  of  Psychology  to  pose  as 
an  explanatory  science. 

Here  then  is  a  first  ambiguity.  In  stating  that 
Psychology  is  a  Natural  Science,  do  we  mean  that  it  is 
merely  descriptive,  or  explanatory  as  well, — a  mere 
Natural  History  or  a  genuine  Science  ? 

A  second  ambiguity  the  issues  of  which  are  closely 
involved  with  those  of  the  first  arises  from  the  fact  that 
to  many  minds  "  science  "  and  "  mechanical  science  "  are 
synonymous  terms.  In  calling  Psychology  a  Natural 
Science  these  mechanists  hold  in  reserve  the  latent  con- 
viction that  it  is  a  Science  only  so  far  as  Cerebral 
Physiology  is  able  to  afford  it  firm  mechanical  support. 
To  such  the  notion  of  a  teleological  science  is  a  contra- 
dictio  in  adjecto  if  it  denotes  a  return  to  what  they 
conceive  to  be  the  superstition  of  final  causes  ;  but  is 
otherwise  harmless  and  even  useful  in  so  far  as  it  serves 
merely  to  describe  a  feature  of  psychical  phenomena  that 
can  be  explained,  or  rather  explained  away,  by  natural 
selection.  Thus  Prof.  James  is  able  to  preface  his  con- 
viction that  Psychology  is  now  "  on  the  materialistic 
tack"  and  must  be  allowed  full  headway  in  its 
mechanically  directed  course,  with  an  approval  of  another 
"  gradually  growing  conviction "  of  modern  thought, 
that  "  mental  life  is  primarily  teleological."  • 

Here  then  is  a  second  ambiguity.  In  stating  that 
Psychology  is  a  Natural  Science,  do  we  mean  that  it  is 
a  mechanical  science,  a  teleological  science,  or  both  ? 

Now  in  addition  to  these  two  positive  sources  of 
ambiguity  due  to  our  uncertainty  as  to  what  we  do  mean 
when  we  talk  of  Psychology  as  a  Natural  Science,  we 
are  met  by  others  equally  confusing  so  soon  as  we 
attempt  to  decide  what  we  do  not  mean  when  we  make 
that  same  assertion.  Of  these  the  two  most  important 
are  those  associated — (i"),  with  the  distinction  between 
"natural"  and  "normative";  (2)  with  the  distinction 
between  "  natural  "  and  "  metaphysical."  Let  us  briefly 
consider  in  turn  each  of  these  familiar  distinctions.  In 

1   Janios,   Text-book  of  I'sychoti'gy,  p.  3.  •'  f-id.  p.  4. 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF   FREEDOM  181 

the  first  place  we  must  draw  attention  to  the  fact  that 
either  distinction  can  be  made  as  obvious  as  we  please, 
and  be  so  stated  as  to  give  us  no  more  trouble,  provided 
we  are  content  to  follow  a  line  of  treatment  by  which 
clear  dualisms  can  always  be  extracted  from  the  most 
entangled  dualities.  This  consists  briefly  in  abstracting 
the  respective  differentia  of  the  two  members  of  the 
antithesis  for  the  purposes  of  distinction,  and  abstracting 
away  all  else  so  as  to  leave  a  clear  space  intervening  for 
the  exclusive  use  of  the  mind  in  its  to-and-fro  passages 
in  between.  Thus,  to  take  the  first  antithesis,  all  chance 
of  mutual  interference  between  the  opposing  terms  is 
removed  by  stating  that  natural  science  deals  with  the 
''  mere  is,"  and  normative  discipline  with  the  "  should 
be "  or  the  "  ought,"  provided  the  further  stipulation  is 
made  that  the  "  is "  is  a  mere  question  of  events  or 
occurrences,  obeying  fixed  laws  of  their  own  in  com- 
plete indifference  to  the  ends  towards  which  they 
may  be  diverted  by  a  regulative  discipline.  Thus  the 
machinery  of  association  is  paraded  as  a  mere  "  is " 
which  thinking  can  freely  regulate  in  conformity  with 
ideals  of  which  the  machinery  gives  no  hint.  A  difficulty 
arises,  however,  when  we  seek  to  render  intelligible  this 
relation  between  the  "  is  "  and  the  "  ought  "  in  conformity 
with  the  principles  of  Continuity.1  The  attempt  is  then 
made  as  a  rule  to  show  that  the  ideal  is  immanent  in  the 
actual,  and  only  needs  a  little  elaboration  to  fulfil  a  true 
regulative  office  ;  unfortunately  the  processes  whereby 
the  actual  assimilates  and  digests  the  ideal  are  not 
usually  xvell-considered,  so  that  the  device  comes  to 
nothing  more  than  the  trick  of  conveying  the  ideal  into 
the  actual,  and  then  withdrawing  it  when  needed,  with 
all  the  deftness  and  complacency  of  a  prestidigitist. 
Indeed  it  must  be  so  unless  the  •'  is "  is  otherwise 
understood  than  as  a  serious  of  "  occurrences  "  or  mere 
"events  in  time."  Hence  this  distinction  on  closer  view 
reveals  ambiguities  and  uncertainties  of  a  fundamental 


1 82  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

kind.  The  same  must  be  said  of  the  relation  between 
the  natural  and  the  metaphysical.  Whilst  it  is  true  that 
no  science  whose  assumptions  are  abstract  in  this  sense, 
that  they  are  not  assumptions  as  to  the  nature  of  Reality, 
can  resent  as  an  interference  the  metaphysician's 
criticism  of  this  assumption  in  the  light  of  his  more 
ultimate  conceptions,  it  is  quite  otherwise  when,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  more  inward  treatment  of  Psychology,  the 
initial  assumptions  that  are  made  are  assumptions  as  to 
the  nature  of  Reality — from  the  point  of  view,  at  any- 
rate,  of  individual  experience.  The  question  must  then 
be  asked  :  "  Is  a  Psychology  that  makes  assumptions,  or 
postulates  as  to  the  nature  of  Reality,  to  be  regarded  as 
a  natural  or  as  a  metaphysical  science  ? "  and  together 
with  it  this  further  question  :  "  Is  Metaphysics  then  a 
Science  without  assumptions,  and  if  not,  how  are  we  to 
distinguish  between  a  Psychology  that  makes  assumptions 
as  to  the  nature  of  Reality  and  a  Metaphysics  that  does 
precisely  the  same  thing  ?  " 

These  existing  ambiguities  now  stated,  we  proceed  to 
show  to  what  extent  they  can  be  unravelled  by  the  help 
of  the  distinction  between  the  Inductive  Psychology  and 
the  Psychology  of  first  causes.  We  have  four  questions 
to  ask  and  answer  :  — 

i  .  Can  Psychology  justly  lay  claim  to  be  an  ex- 
planatory science  or  is  its  function  merely 
descriptive  ? 

2J.  Is  Psychology  a  mechanical  or  a  teleological 
science  ? 

3'.  In  what  relation  does  Psychology  stand  to  the 
normative  sciences  ? 

4  .  In  what  relation  does  Psychology  stand  to  Meta- 
physics ? 

i  .   Is   PSYCHOLOGY  A   DESCRIPTIVE  OR  AN  EXPLANATORY 
SCIENCE  ? 

§  i/.  In  answer  to  the  first  query  we  would  unhesitat- 
ingly maintain  that  Inductive  Psychology,  in  so  far,  at  any 
rate  as  it  is  Psychology  and  not  a  schematised  Physiology, 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  183 

is  a  merely  descriptive  Science.  From  this  point  of  view 
the  effort  of  Inductive  Psychology  as  represented  by  Prof. 
James  and  in  a  more  systematic  though  less  convincing 
manner  by  the  school  of  Avenarius,  to  make  cerebral  laws 
responsible  for  the  explanation  of  psychical  effects,  is 
readily  intelligible  ;  for  it  is,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  the  only 
quasi-explanatory  outlet  for  the  exclusive  devotee  of 
Inductive  Psychology.  The  line  of  reasoning  which  these 
cerebral  explicants  take  is  put  very  clearly  by  Mr.  Petzoldt 
in  his  recently  published  Introduction  to  the  Philosophy 
of  Pure  Experience.  It  consists  essentially  in  the 
following  argument : — The  only  intelligible  principle 
of  explanation  is  that  founded  on  the  thoroughgoing 
unideterminism  of  events.  Such  unideterminism  is  not 
anywhere  traceable  within  the  mental  sphere.  Mental 
processes  must  therefore  either  remain  permanently 
inexplicable  or  be  explained  through  their  connections 
with  material  processes,  for  these  alone  proceed  uni- 
determinately.  As  all  known  facts  agree  in  showing  that 
the  only  material  processes  in  immediate  relation  with 
psychical  processes  are  the  processes  of  the  brain,  it 
follows  irresistibly  that  if  there  is  to  be  a  science  of  mind 
at  all,  psychical  processes  must  be  conceived  of  as  the 
dependent  concomitants  of  brain-processes  and  receive 
their  unideterminateness  through  their  connection  with 
these.  And  the  conclusion  runs  :  "  If  this  is  not  so,  then 
mental  science  is  a  mere  descriptive  phantasmagoria,  in 
plainer  words  an  illusion." 

Here  we  have  the  clear  statement  of  the  pass  to  which 
we  are  reduced  when  we  insist  on  the  psychical  life  being 
regulated  like  the  object-matter  of  the  physicist  on  the 
lines  of  a  strictly  mechanical  unideterminateness.  We 
are  obliged  to  make  the  reality  of  immediate  experience 
dependent  for  its  intelligibility  on  physiological  sequences 
of  a  more  or  less  manufactured  and  fictitious  kind,  for  as 
Lewes  himself  puts  it  —  and  the  remark  is  abundantly 
verified  in  the  character  of  the  Avenarian  method  — 
much  that  passes  as  a  physiological  explanation  of  mental 
facts  is  simply  the  translation  of  those  facts  in  terms  of  a 


1 84  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

physiology  that  is  merely  hypothetical.1  Still  if  a 
hypothetical  physiological  scheme  is  the  only  form  that 
psychical  explanation  can  ultimately  take,  it  must  be 
welcomed  as  supplying  at  least  provisionally  a  much-felt 
want,  and  we  who  accept  it  must  reconcile  ourselves  as 
best  we  may  to  the  absurdities,  the  dualisms,  and  the 
scepticisms  which  are  its  inseparable  concomitants. 

I  cannot  see,  however,  that  we  are  under  any  necessity 
to  trace  out  our  explanations  of  psychical  processes  by 
the  aid  of  the  ideal  scalpel  of  the  Avenarians.  Human 
intelligence  having  got  the  idea  of  causality  from  the 
action  of  the  relatively  independent  agencies  in  immediate 
experience,  introduces  it  into  its  study  of  external  pheno- 
mena under  the  name  of  Force.  It  abandons  this 
concept,  however,  as  superfluous  so  soon  as  it  is  able  to 
replace  it  by  the  more  systematic  conception  of  Law, 
of  unidetermining  law.  This  twice -refined  product  of 
shadowy  thought  is  then  reintroduced,  a  ghost  of  a  ghost, 
into  its  original  home.  It  has  no  longer  anything 
psychical  about  it,  but  is  a  breathless,  mechanical,  and 
purely  fictitious  creature  ;  yet  its  plain  duty,  we  are  told, 
is  to  oust  from  the  mental  life  all  causal  agencies  that  are 
not  of  its  own  rarefied  kind,  and  to  exercise  full  sway  over 
the  soulless  dregs  or  "states"  of  consciousness  that  persist 
even  after  all  original  causal  agency  has  been  withdrawn. 
One  can  hardly  help  thinking  that  this  unidetermining 
fiction  from  the  ideal  realm  of  abstract  physics  resents 
even  the  presence  of  these  submissive  fragments  of 
mentality,  and  would  fain  have  a  free  field  in  which  to 
recreate  consciousness  afresh  after  its  own  heart.  Perhaps 
the  post-Avenarians  will  bring  us  to  this  ere  long. 

These  remarks  are  of  course  not  aimed  at  the  inductive 
treatment  of  psychical  processes  and  states,  which  is  as 
essential  and  important  as  it  is  limitedly  descriptive,  but 

1  Quoted  by  Alfred  Fouille'e,  Psychohgie  </>•>  I  rites-Forces,  i.  p.  252  ;  cf. 
also  James,  7'ext-/look  of  Psychology,  p.  278:  —  "Truly  the  day  is  distant  when 
physiologists  shall  actually  trace  from  cell-group  to  cell-group  the  irradia- 
tions which  we  have  hypothetical!}'  invoked.  Probably  it  will  never  arrive. 
The  schematism  we  have  used  is,  moreover,  taken  immediately  from  the 
analysis  of  objects  into  their  element.':!')'  parts,  and  only  extended  by  analogy  to 
the  brain. 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  185 

only  at  such  pseudo- Psychology  as  goes  to  its  own 
physiological  fictions  for  causal  explanations  in  the  spirit 
of  the  savage  who  seeks  his  counsel  from  the  idols  of  his 
own  making.  Such  flimsy  usurpation  of  the  true  ex- 
planatory function  of  free  spiritual  agency  has  surely  been 
tolerated  all  too  long,  seeing  how  wholly  gratuitous  it 
undoubtedly  is.  For  in  actual  concrete  experience,  we 
are  presented  at  first  hand  with  a  living  causal  agency, 
continuously  effective  in  mental  development,  to  ignore 
whose  effective  presence  is  to  ignore  the  whole  inwardness 
and  power  of  the  psychical  life,  to  treat  it  as  something 
husk  and  hollow  and  as  cleanly  devitalised  as  abstractive 
power  can  make  it. 

Inductive  Psychology  with  its  deterministic  assumption 
necessarily  ignores  this  vital  factor  as  the  regulating  agent 
in  mental  development.  In  doing  so  it  excludes  the 
natural  causal  factor  and  is  logically  doomed  to  a  purely 
descriptive  function.  Inductive  Psychology  we  repeat,  is 
necessarily  and  exclusively  descriptive.  The  so-called 
causal  connections  between  stimulus  and  sensation,  can 
be  causal  only  so  far  as  causal  agency  is  recognised  in 
the  material  world  as  a  real  inherent  factor,  and  the  idea 
of  "  force  "  as  no  longer  a  mere  subjectively  valid  concept. 
But  such  a  recognition  of  the  rights  of  force  in  the 
material  world  implies  a  recognition  of  the  relative 
independence  of  the  objective  factor  in  immediate  experi- 
ence, and  this  again  implies  a  recognition  of  the  relative 
independence  of  the  subject  within  the  unity  of  that 
experience,  a  recognition,  that  is,  of  a  certain  free,  causal 
agency  as  an  effective  factor  in  mental  development. 
The  original  free-will  and  force,  its  correlate,  depend 
together.  Once  free  psychic  agency  is  ignored  by  the 
necessities  of  a  deterministic  science,  the  correlate  force 
has  no  longer  any  right  of  presence  but  must  sink  to  the 
rank  of  a  mere  convenient  figment  of  the  physicist's 
speech  to  give  way  eventually,  first  to  energy  and  then  to 
the  pure  law  of  a  pure  unideterminism. 

It  is  only  then  in  its  truly  inward  aspect  that 
Psychology  is  a  genuine  explanatory  science.  For  it 


1 86  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

deals  there  with  free  agency  as  the  central,  essential  factor 
in  its  own  development,  following  the  causal  principle  as 
it  were  into  all  its  effects  and  watching  how  out  of  such 
effective  work  eventually  grow  the  great  ideal  structures 
of  the  Self  and  the  World  as  systems  of  meaning  and 
value.  Psychology,  then,  we  may  say  in  conclusion,  is 
descriptive  or  explanatory  according  as  it  is  an  inductive 
Psychology  or  a  Psychology  of  first  causes  and  free 
agencies,  a  Psychology  studied  from  the  outside  or  a 
Psychology  studied  from  the  inward  point  of  view  of  the 
experient  himself. 


2r.   Is  PSYCHOLOGY  A  MECHANICAL  OR  A  TELEOLOGICAL 
SCIENCE? 

§  18.  We  have  seen  that  as  a  purely  inductive  science 
Psychology  abstracts  unreservedly  from  the  relative 
independence  of  the  subject  in  immediate  experience. 
With  the  abstraction  of  this  relative  independence  goes 
all  possibility  of  teleological  explanation  in  Psychology 
together  with  any  and  every  other  kind  of  explanation. 
All  that  remains  is  the  possibility  of  describing  after  the 
mechanical  pattern  processes  of  a  teleological  kind.  And 
this  is  what  inductive  Psychology  actually  does  in  dealing 
with  mental  development.  But  a  science,  as  we  would 
say,  is  mechanical  or  teleological  according  as  its  method 
is  mechanical  or  teleological,  hence  Inductive  Psychology 
is  essentially  a  mechanical  science,  inasmuch  as  its  whole 
method  of  procedure  is  modelled  on  that  of  the 
mechanical  sciences.  It  may  take  cognizance  of  the 
adjustments  of  inward  to  outer  relations,  of  adaptations  of 
means  to  ends,  and  the  like,  but  its  sole  aim  therein  is  to 
bring  these  adjustments  and  adaptations  within  some 
descriptive  scheme  of  laws.  In  short,  it  seems  impossible 
to  admit  as  teleological  a  science  that  treats  ideological 
data  on  the  mechanical  model,  the  model,  that  is,  of  a 
descriptive  treatment  whose  goal  is  the  discovery  of  law 
and  uniformity  everywhere  and  in  everything.  It  would 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  187 

be    just    as    reasonable     to     talk     of     Physiology     as     a 
teleological  science. 

As  a  science  of  first  causes,  however,  the  Psychology  of 
Immediate  Concrete  Experience  is  essentially  teleological. 
For  its  aim  is  to  show  how  causes  whose  freedom  can  find 
effect  only  in  the  selection  of  ends  and  the  choice  of 
means  to  realise  them,  contrive  to  realise  their  ends  in 
virtue  of  a  persistence  of  interest  that  continues  active 
despite  all  temporary  interruption,  until  the  ends  are 
reached.  It  is  thus  not  only  a  science  of  first  causes  but  of 
final  causes,  and  its  method  is  that  which  is  natural  to  such 
a  science,  that,  namely,  of  making  the  fundamental 
principles  of  finality  centrally  responsible  for  the  work  of 
explanation.  We  should  accordingly  be  prepared  to 
maintain  that  as  a  science  of  first  causes  Psychology  is 
primarily  and  essentially  teleological  in  its  method,  but 
that  as  an  inductive  inquiry,  its  method  is  mechanical  and 
descriptive,  and  indeed  so  much  so  that  the  attempt  to 
take  on  explanatory  functions  inevitably  leads,  as  the 
history  of  the  subject  has  shown,  to  the  introduction  into 
Psychology  of  a  purely  mechanical  scheme  of  explanation, 
such  as  that  of  the  physiological  vital  series  of  Avenarius. 

3  .   IN  WHAT  RELATION  DOES  PSYCHOLOGY  STAND  TO  THK 
NORMATIVE  SCIENCES  ? 

§  19.  The  Psychology  of  the  will  to  think  correctly,  or 
of  the  will  to  act  rightly,  or  of  the  will  to  feel  deeply 
the  inspiration  of  beauty  is  in  each  of  these  three 
directions  of  volition  the  science  of  a  dominating  funda- 
mental interest.  Thus  as  Dr.  Sigwart  reminds  us  in  the 
Introduction  to  his  Logic,  the  function  of  Logic  as  a 
normative  discipline  is  to  regulate  that  region  of  our 
voluntary  thinking,  and  that  region  only,  \vhich  is 
governed  by  the  desire  to  think  the  truth.  A 
psychological  analysis  of  the  will  to  think  correctly 
implies,  then,  an  analysis  of  a  certain  spccilic  unity  of 
interest,  interest  in  the  true  form  or  structure  of 
knowledge.  Hence  that  Psvcholo<rv  which  takes  as  its 


1 88  W.  R.   BOYCE  GIBSON 


in 


fundamental  problem  the  question  as  to  how  the  mental 
life  is  built  up  by  the  progressive  differentiations  and 
interjunctions  of  such  unities  of  conative  effort,  how,  in  a 
word,  unity  of  meaning  is  developed  through  unity  and 
continuity  of  interest  in  an  object  appears  to  me  to  stand 
in  a  peculiarly  intimate  relation  to  these  standard 
disciplines,  and  that  type  of  analysis  which  takes  the  form 
of  showing  how  unity  of  purpose  is  the  central  factor  in 
its  own  development,  treating  such  unity  of  purpose  as 
the  persistence  of  a  free  agent  in  its  own  self-directed  ends 
is  the  form  of  analysis  naturally  suited  to  bear  the  super- 
structure of  a  normative  discipline. 

Inductive  Psychology,  on  the  other  hand,  appears  to 
supply  loose  material  rather  than  a  psychological  basis 
for  normative  science.  It  deals  with  the  "  is "  of  the 
psychical  life  as  a  succession  of  events  or  occurrences  and 
seeks  the  uniformity  of  law  amid  the  flux  of  mental 
change.  It  thus  seizes  the  mental  life,  not  as  a  "  self- 
realising  "  process,  to  use  a  hazardous  but  expressive  term, 
but  rather  as  a  product  of  the  reign  of  law,  to  be 
analysed  out  into  laws  and  their  combinations.  Failing 
to  seize  the  inner  meaning  of  self-development,  it  fails  ipso 
facto  in  adapting  its  analysis  to  the  inner  requirements 
of  a  regulative  elaboration.  Whereas  the  more  inward 
Psychology,  through  an  analysis  which  ultimately  takes 
the  form  of  a  synthetic  development  of  final  causes,  is 
throughout  concerned  with  a  striving  after  what  is  better, 
with  an  "  is-ought "  so  to  speak,  Inductive  Psychology  is 
only  incidentally  concerned  with  such  a  striving,  and  even 
when  busied  with  it,  investigates  its  laws  of  development 
from  the  same  external  point  of  view  which  Physics 
adopts  in  investigating  the  facts  of  external  nature.  A 
gap  is  thus  left  between  the  psychological  analysis  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  elaborative  treatment  on  the  other, 
which  gives  to  the  normative  superstructure  the  look  of 
something  shaped  out  of  alien  material,  rather  than  of  a 
growth  out  of  what  is  naturally  akin  to  it. 

It  therefore  seems  to  me  that  the  continuity  between 
Psychology  and  the  regulative  disciplines  can  be  truly 


in  THE   PROBLEM   OF  FREEDOM  189 

secured  only  when  Psychology  is  considered  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  experient,  as  the  Psychology  of  the 
first  and  final  cause. 


4  .   IN  WHAT  RELATION  DOES  PSYCHOLOGY  STAND  TO 
METAPHYSICS  ? 

§  20.  Inductive  Psychology  stands  to  Metaphysics  in 
precisely  the  same  relation  as  the  physical  sciences. 
Physical  Science  abstracts  at  the  start  from  all  considera- 
tions that  are  indifferent  to  it,  and  makes  just  such 
assumptions  with  regard  to  its  subject-matter  as  it  requires 
for  its  own  best  development.  These  postponed  considera- 
tions and  conventional  assumptions  are  then  taken  up  by 
the  metaphysician,  and  furnish  food  for  his  reflection. 
In  such  relation  there  seems  no  room  for  ambiguity. 
Inductive  Psychology  has  its  abstract,  limited  point  of 
view,  e.g.,  its  deterministic  assumption,  and  is  therefore 
amenable  to  metaphysical  control  in  precisely  the  same 
sense  as  in  the  science  of  mechanics.  But  the  Psychology 
of  first  causes  is  not  so  simply  related  to  Metaphysics. 
For  it  has  this  in  common  with  Metaphysical  inquiry 
that  both  it  and  Metaphysics  are  equally  interested  in 
the  fundamental  assumption  as  to  the  nature  of  Experience 
upon  which  assumption  its  whole  superstructure  is  based. 
The  two  sciences  seem  to  meet  in  the  Theory  of  Know- 
ledge, or  to  use  a  truer  and  more  inclusive  expression,  in 
the  Theory  of  Experience.  Is  this  more  inward 
Psychology,  then,  to  be  classed  as  an  offspring  of 
Metaphysical  Inquiry,  or  as  more  closely  related  to  the 
Natural  Science  of  Inductive  Psychology  ? 

In  our  opinion  it  is  still  a  scientific  Psychology  and 
not  a  Metaphysics.  For  (i  ),  though  concerned  with  its 
own  assumptions  it  is  not  concerned  with  the  assumptions 
of  any  other  Science,  whereas  Metaphysics  is  concerned 
with  assumptions  in  general  ;  (2  )  its  aim  is  to  explain 
causally,  so  far  as  it  is  able,  and  from  the  inside,  what 
Inductive  Psychology  explains,  so  to  speak,  descriptively 
and  from  the  outside.  Its  subject-matter  is  therefore  the 


i9o  W.   R.  BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

data  of  psychical  experience  and  in  so  far  as  it  has  such 
specific  data,  is  more  akin  to  a  Science  than  to  a  Meta- 
physics. Moveover  (3°),  it  does  start  with  an  assumption 
as  to  the  nature  of  Reality  suited  to  its  own  peculiar 
problem,  and  the  mere  fact  of  this  assumption  being  made 
seems  to  constitute  a  barrier-fact  between  the  Science  of 
first  causes  and  Metaphysics,  even  though  the  function  of 
Metaphysics  be  conceived  as  purely  critical,  and  not  as 
consisting  in  the  reconstruction  of  Reality  on  a  basis  free 
from  all  assumptions. 

Assuming  then  that  we  are  entitled  to  regard  the 
Psychology  of  first  causes  as  a  Science  and  not  as  a 
Metaphysic,  it  remains  for  us  to  point  out  that  the 
distinction  between  the  two  Psychologies,  the  inductive 
and — as  we  may  here  suitably  call  it — the  synthetic1 
Psychology,  affords  a  basis  for  a  corresponding  distinction 
in  the  relation  of  Metaphysics  to  Psychology.  The 
essence  of  the  inductive  method  is  that  it  starts  with  a 
medley  of  disconnected  facts  or  data,  and  aims  at  dis- 
covering hypotheses  wherewith  to  connect  and  explain 
the  facts.  These  hypotheses  are  relatively  to  the  facts 
they  seek  to  explain  fluctuating  and  unstable.  Inductive 
procedure  in  a  word  starts  with  that  which  is  to  be 
explained  and  aims  at  explanations  which  are  always 
hypothetical  and  liable  to  be  superseded  by  others.  That 
which  gives  unity  and  explanatory  coherency  to  inductive 
science  is  just  this  hypothetical,  fluctuating  element. 
Synthetic  procedure,  on  the  other  hand,  starts  not  with  the 
something  that  has  to  be  explained,  but  with  the  ex- 
planatory factors  themselves,  and  its  endeavour  is  to 
justify  the  explanatory  function  of  these  factors.  Hence, 
whereas  the  unifying  explanatory  element  in  inductive 
procedure  is  hypothetical,  it  is  accepted  in  synthetic 
procedure  as  the  fundamental  fact  or  factor.  This 
distinction  made,  Metaphysics,  it  seems,  may,  according 
as  its  procedure  is  inductive  or  synthetic,  become  the 
abstract  science  of  ultimate  hypotheses,  or  the  concrete 
science  of  the  First  Synthesis,  Cause,  or  Universal 

1  Synthetic  in  the  teleological,  not  in  the  abstract  logical,  sense  of  the  term. 


in  THE   PROBLEM  OF  FREEDOM  191 

Agency,  the  science  of  the  Absolute  in  the  sense  of  the 
Whole.  This  science  of  a  Synthetic  Metaphysic  would 
stand  to  Psychology  in  some  such  relation  as  the  Science 
of  the  First  Cause  to  the  Science  of  first  causes.  But 
the  result  is  not  here  the  important  point  ;  rather  the 
nature  of  the  relation.  From  which  end,  we  ask,  are  we 
to  start  in  our  endeavour  to  pass  from  Synthetic  Psychology 
to  Synthetic  Metaphysics  ;  from  the  Absolute  or  from 
the  Individual's  Experience  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  we 
must  start  from  the  latter.  A  Science  of  synthesis  may 
find  its  culminating  triumph  in  an  all-inclusive  and 
explanatory  Theism  but  it  must  surely  grow  out  of  much 
humbler  considerations.  Immediate  individual  experience 
is  the  one  true  vital  synthesis  whence  all  such  synthetic 
effort  must  assuredly  start,  for  it  is  that  which  is  ever- 
present  with  us  as  the  fountain-head  of  all  our  knowledge. 
To  be  fruitful  and  progressive  all  synthetic  Science  whose 
aim  is  to  reconstruct  the  Real  according  to  its  own  nature, 
without  abstracting  from  any  essential  feature  of  Reality 
as  it  is  known  to  us,  must  be  rooted  in  the  immediate  ex- 
perience of  the  individual  first  cause,  and  grow  out  thence 
in  some  specific  way.  And  if  such  growth  should 
eventually  bring  with  it  not  only  the  larger  vision  of 
Reality,  but  a  simultaneous  growth  out  of  the  individual- 
istic starting-point  altogether, — is  this  not  both  natural 
and  logically  inevitable  ?  The  roots  of  a  tree  grow  and 
ramify  pari passu  with  the  branches,  and  the  mustard-tree 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Knowledge  is  assuredly  no  exception 
to  this  universal  law  of  Expansion.  The  one  essential 
safeguard  of  concrete  synthetic  science  we  take  to  be  this, 
that  it  should  from  the  very  outset  cleave  to  Reality, 
grasp,  that  is,  at  something  which  shares  the  nature, 
though  it  share  not  the  fulness,  of  the  Absolute.  If  the 
limitedness  of  its  point  of  view  compels  it  to  grapple 
itself  to  Reality  by  the  help  of  some  assumption,  the 
assumption  merely  interprets  the  nature  and  scope  of  its 
contact  with  Reality,  and  does  not  signify  an  abstract 
remove  of  one  or  more  degrees  from  such  living  contact 
with  the  Real.  Once  at  grasp  with  Reality,  the  logic  of 


1 92  W.   R.   BOYCE  GIBSON  m 

growth  will  surely  justify  it  in  bringing  wider  and  yet 
wider  reaches  of  the  Real  within  its  compass,  in  passing 
from  one  relative  whole  of  Experience  to  another  and  yet 
another,  each  more  comprehensive  and  organic  than  the 
one  preceding  it,  until  some  fruitful  vision  of  the  whole 
be  reached.  In  some  such  way  as  this,  perhaps,  might 
the  Psychology  of  first  causes  prepare  the  way  for  the 
Philosophy  of  the  First  Cause. 


IV 

THE    LIMITS    OF    EVOLUTION 
By  G.   E.   UNDERBILL 

I.  THF.  PROBLEM 

1.  The  relation  of  Philosophy  to  the  Sciences. 

2.  Within  what  limits  does  the  process  of  Evolution  hold  good? 

3.  The  meaning  of  Evolution. 

II.   PRESUPPOSITIONS  or  EVOLUTION 

4.  a,  Becoming. 

5.  /^,  One  and  Many. 

6.  rt  Things. 

7.  d,  Time  and  Space  ;  e,  Force. 

III.  (JAPS  IN  NATURE  AND  iN  KNOWLEDGE 

8.  Science,  though   it  assumes  the  homogeneity  of  matter  and  that  A'atura 

non  facit  sa//u»i,   recognises   the  gaps   between   the   inorganic  and   the 
organic,  and  between  life  and  mind. 

IV.  EVOLUTION     IN    THE    INORGANIC    SPHERE 

9.  Science  regards  even  the  chemical  elements  as  evolved  from  homogeneous 

matter  according  to  eternal  laws  of  motion. 

10.  Science   (a)   never  deals  with   origins,  (/')  aims  to  express  dilierences  of 

quality  in  terms  of  quantity. 

11.  Hut   differences  of  quality,  though   they  have  quantitative  aspects,  are  not 

mere    differences    of   quantity  :     they    are    no    los    real    and    no    more 
phenomenal  than  differences  of  quantity. 

12.  The  aspects  of  things,  with  which  mechanical   science  deals,  are  products 

of   mental    creation    and    are   measured    by   standards   which    again    .ire 
products  of  mental  creation. 

13.  Thus   mechanical   science  limits   its    Evolution   to  the  changes  of  position 

and  shape  of  homogeneous  particles  of  matter  according  to  eternal  laws 
of  motion. 

14.  Natural   Selection    may  be   regarded   a>   due   to   Chance,    if  by  Chance   is 

meant   a  cause  or  causes  unknown  to  human  calculation.       But  'blind' 
Chance  is  not  a  possible  object  of  science. 

o 


I94  G.   E.   UNDERHILL  iv 

V.   EVOLUTION  IN  THE  ORGANIC  SPHERK 

15.  Life  is  a  factor  in  organisms,  which  presents  problems  distinct  from  their 

mechanical  and  chemical  aspects. 

16.  Life  implies  adaptation  and  with  it  the  notion  of  Teleology. 

1 7.  The  Evolution  of  organisms  can  only  be   '  explained  '  by  describing  the 

succession  of  consequent  upon  antecedent  stages  according  to  unchanging 
biological  laws. 

1 8.  Adaptation  implies  purpose;  though  the  metaphor  is  taken  from  human 

adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  science  is  not  concerned  to  decide  whether 
such  purpose  is  conscious  or  unconscious. 

19.  But  philosophy  sees  in  such  purpose  only  one  more  instance  of  rational 

agency  in  things,  parallel  to  those  laws  of  matter,  motion  and  force, 
which  are  capable  of  expression  in  rational  terms. 

VI.  EVOLUTION  IN  THE  SPHERE  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 

20.  The  problem  of  Evolution  is  here  generically  the  same  as  in  biology  : 

given  consciousness  and  certain  permanent  laws  of  mental  processes, 
successive  stages  in  mental  Evolution  can  be  explained  in  the  sense  that 
they  can  be  described  more  or  less  accurately  as  happening  in 
accordance  with  such  permanent  laws. 

VII.   RESULTS  OF  THE  INQUIRY 

21.  The  Evolutionist  (a)  cannot  deal  with  origins,  (/')  must  assume  permanent 

and  unchanging  laws  of  development,  and  (c)  must  discover  relations 
intelligible  to  his  own  reason. 

22.  The  Darwinian  Evolution  is  fundamentally  the  same  as  the  Aristotelian 

conception  of  Final  Cause. 

'0   /X€V  (TWOTTTIKOS  SlCtAfKTlKOS,    U   St  /AT/  OV. 

I.  THE  PROBLEM 

§  i.  No  one  has  maintained  more  strongly  than  Plato  the 
close  connection  between  philosophy  and  the  special 
sciences,  and  nowadays  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer,  following 
boldly  in  his  footsteps,  has  entitled  his  own  work 
SyntJietic  PJdlosophy,  implying  thereby  that  his  own 
aim  is  similarly  to  exhibit  the  relations  of  one  science 
to  another  and  the  relations  of  the  whole  body  of 
scientific  truth  to  philosophy  in  general  —  to  survey  as 
from  a  high  watch  tower  the  totality  of  relations  that 
constitute  the  universe.  But  in  this  age  of  specialisation 
no  mind  is  large  enough  and  no  life  is  long  enough  to 
enable  any  single  man  to  grasp  even  the  principles  of 
all  the  separate  sciences — much  less  the  immense  body 
of  truths  that  depend  upon  them.  Even  Mr.  Spencer 
after  many  years  of  incessant  labour  has  been  obliged 


iv  THE  LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  195 

to  omit  two  important  volumes  in  his  long  series — the 
two  volumes  which  were  to  deal  with  the  inorganic 
kingdom  and  describe  or  explain  the  transition  from 
inanimate  matter  to  things  endowed  with  life.  In  fact, 
the  philosopher  of  the  present  day  is  at  a  distinct 
disadvantage  when  compared  with  his  predecessor  of 
even  two  or  three  generations  ago.  Descartes,  Leibnitz, 
Kant  were  leaders  of  science  as  well  as  philosophers, 
and  practically  knew  all  that  the  science  of  their  day 
could  teach  them.  The  modern  philosopher,  more  often 
than  not,  has  had  no  scientific  training,  and  is  dependent 
for  his  general  notions  of  scientific  truth  on  second-hand 
evidence  or  on  authority.  If  by  some  chance  or  other  he 
excels  in  one  science,  he  cannot  excel  in  all.  He  has 
too  to  contend  against  another  difficulty,  in  some  ways 
even  harder  to  meet.  While  he  is  but  too  well  aware 
of  his  own  ignorance  of  the  sciences,  scientific  men, 
eminent  in  their  own  special  branches,  are  by  no  means 
so  modest.  They  are  apt  to  think,  like  the  Athenian 
artisans,  of  whom  Socrates  complained  of  old,  that 
because  they  know  one  thing  well,  they  know  all.  And 
more  especially  are  they  apt  to  think  that  they  can  lay 
down  the  law  with  equal  certainty  in  philosophical 
subjects.  Now,  though  it  may  be  true  that  all  men 
who  think  at  all,  are  bound  to  philosophise,  it  by  no 
means  follows  that  they  are  bound  to  philosophise  well. 
Indeed  philosophy,  like  science,  needs  its  own  special 
training,  and,  if  the  study  of  it  can  reveal  to  us  no  royal 
road  to  truth,  yet  it  can  warn  us  against  many  by-paths 
which  in  past  times  have  led  men  into  hopeless  errors, 
and  now  stand  as  open  as  ever  to  allure  the  wanderer 
from  the  truth  :  and  into  some  of  these  the  scientific 
man,  turned  philosopher  for  the  nonce,  has  shown  himself 
peculiarly  ready  to  stray. 

§  2.  The  subject  of  the  present  essay  is  a  modest  one  : 
it  is  to  consider,  some  forty  years  after  the  appearance 
of  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  and  of  Spencer's  First 
Principles,  the  limits  within  which  the  theory  of  Evolution 
seems  to  be  applicable,  and  to  consider  them  from  a 


196  G.  E.   UNDERHILL  iv 

philosophical  point  of  view.  The  writer  is  well  aware 
of  his  own  ignorance  of  the  sciences,  and  can  pretend 
to  no  very  deep  or  encyclopaedic  study  of  philosophy. 
Acute  critics  of  every  school  have  dealt,  favourably  or 
unfavourably,  with  the  various  exponents  of  evolutional 
doctrines — none  more  ably  than  Professor  James  Ward 
in  his  four l  brilliant  lectures  on  "  the  Theory  of 
Evolution,"  wherein  Mr.  Spencer  is  the  chief  object  of 
his  onslaught.  The  present  writer,  however,  wishes  to 
deal,  not  so  much  with  the  truth  or  falsity  of  particular 
views  about  Evolution,  as  with  the  general  limits  within 
which  the  process  of  Evolution  as  such  can  ideally  be 
supposed  to  apply.  Does  the  acceptance  of  Evolution 
involve  the  iravra  pel  of  Heraclitus  as  against  the 
Eleatic  permanence  of  being  ?  or  is  it  rather  a  case  of 
possible  variations  within  constant  fixed  terms  ? 

§  3.  Darwin,  it  is  well  known,  hardly  ventured  on  any 
speculations  outside  the  range  of  his  own  observations 
upon  plant  and  animal  life.  Hence  the  strength  of  his 
position.  Mr.  Spencer  would  apparently  extend  the 
evolutional  process  to  the  whole  universe,  though  it 
is  by  no  means  clear  what  he  would  wish  to  include 
in  the  universe.  When  he  tells  us  that  "  there  is  an 
alternation  of  Evolution  and  Dissolution  in  the  totality 
of  things,"  we  not  unnaturally  suppose  that  he  means 
to  include  everything.  Not  so,  however,  for  when  he 
speaks  of  force,  he  tells  us  :  "  By  the  persistence  of  Force, 
we  really  mean  the  persistence  of  some  Power  which 
transcends  our  knowledge  and  conception.  The  mani- 
festations, as  recurring  either  in  ourselves  or  outside  of 
us,  do  not  persist  ;  but  that  which  persists  is  the 
Unknown  Cause  of  these  manifestations."  Again,  he 
asserts  the  existence  of  "an  Unconditioned  Reality, 
without  beginning  or  end."  Perhaps  indeed  he  would 
not  include  force  or  power  or  the  laws  of  nature  under 
the  term  things.  Still  as  manifested  to  us,  they  are 
certainly  "phenomena,"  and  if  all  phenomena  arc  but 
the  manifestations  of  an  ''Unknown  Cause"-— be  this 

1   Cf.   Naturalism  and  Agnosticism,  vol.   i.  p.    185  ft. 


iv  THE   LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  197 

Unknown  Cause  mind  or  matter — it  is  hard  to  see 
what  differentia  is  left  him,  whereby  to  distinguish 
things  as  phenomena  from  force,  gravitation,  etc.,  as 
phenomena  ;  so  that,  if  the  process  of  Evolution  is  to 
apply  to  all  phenomena  universally,  it  ought  to  be  as 
applicable  to  gravitation  as  it  is  to  elephants.  In  fact 
in  Mr.  Spencer's  hands  the  term  "  Evolution  "  has  passed 
away  entirely  from  its  old  and  limited  meaning  of  the  l 
"  gradual  unfolding  of  a  living  germ  from  its  embryonic 
beginning  to  its  final  and  mature  form,"  to  the  quite 
different  meaning  of  the  "process  by  which  the  mass 
and  energy  of  the  universe  have  passed  from  some 
assumed  primeval  state  to  that  distribution  which  they 
have  at  present."  Evolution  in  this  sense  is,  in  a  word, 
the  process  of  the  World's  Becoming.2  And  it  is  in 
this  sense  that  many  scientific  men  —  let  alone  philo- 
sophers—use the  term  quite  outside  its  old  limitation 
to  the  development  of  vegetable  and  animal  forms. 
Thus  Sir  Norman  Lockyer,  in  an  article 3  dealing  with 
recent  attempts  to  trace  the  origin  of  the  chemical 
elements,  habitually  speaks  of  the  Evolution  of  the 
elements  from  something  homogeneous  to  their  present 
heterogeneity. 

It  is  then  in  this  wider  sense  of  'Becoming'  that 
the  term  '  Evolution '  will  be  used  in  this  essay,  and 
it  is  the  writer's  object  to  deal  with  the  presuppositions 
which  any  philosophical  account  of  the  World's  Becoming 
in  general  or  any  scientific  account  of  any  Becoming 
in  particular  must  necessarily  start. 

II.  PRESUPPOSITIONS  OK  EVOLUTION 

§  4.  The  most  obvious  of  all  the  presuppositions  is 
Becoming  itself.  It  can  only  be  taken  as  an  ultimate 
fact  given  us  in  immediate  perception  —  a  fact  which 

1   Ward,  ibid.  vol.   i.   p.   186. 

-  Involution  is  oft  on  defined  as  the  gradual  process  of  adaptation  Ix-twet'n 
inner  and  outer  relations,  and  doubtless  it  is  so  used  in  particular  cases  ;  but 
obviously  there  can  be  no  evolution  of  the  "universe"  in  this  sense;  for  there 
can  !>'•  no  outer  relations,  outside  the  universe. 

J   \afurf,  Ixi.   p.   131  tt. 


198  G.   E.   UNDERHILL  iv 

Thought  as  such  can  never  grasp  or  explain.  For  Be- 
coming is  always  continuous.  Thought  is  successive. 
A  bar  of  iron  at  the  temperature  a  is  raised  by  heating 
to  the  temperature  /3.  Though  the  process  of  heating 
is  continuous,  Thought  can  only  represent  it  to  itself  as 
passing  through  a  succession  of  stages  x1,  x1  .  .  .  xn,  each 
one  of  which  it  can  describe  with  greater  or  less  accuracy. 
Still  in  Thought  a  similar  interval  can  equally  well  be 
imagined  to  exist  between  xl  and  x2,  so  that,  however 
exactly  all  these  intermediate  stages  may  be  described, 
the  continuous  process  as  such  always  defies  description. 
And  necessarily  so,  for  while  Reality  is  concrete,  Thought 
is  in  its  nature  abstract,  and  as  abstract  is  so  far  inadequate 
to  Things.  Indeed  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that 
all  the  failures  in  philosophical  and  scientific  explanations 
are  ultimately  due  to  failure  at  some  point  or  other  to 
recognise  this  fundamental  difference  between  Thought 
and  Things.  All  explanation  of  whatsoever  kind  must 
ipso  facto  be  abstract  and  as  such  inadequate,  though  its 
inadequacy  is  more  often  than  not  helped  out  by  tacit 
assumptions  and  additions,  which  we  are  so  accustomed 
to  make  that  they  escape  our  notice — assumptions  and 
additions  derived  from  the  most  familiar  processes  of 
immediate  perception.  To  recur  to  the  illustration  of 
the  heating  of  the  iron  bar ;  we  often  say  that  we 
understand  what  is  meant  by  its  temperature  being 
raised  from  a  to  /3,  when  really  we  do  not  understand  it 
by  Thought  (for  it  is  a  continuous  process),  but  only 
either  perceive  it  actually  by  our  senses  or  else  imagine 
it.  No  explanation  therefore  can  deal  with  a  concrete 
thing  as  a  whole ;  it  can  only  deal  with  its  various 
aspects  or  states,  so  that  the  one  and  only  way  to  avoid 
error  is  to  be  perfectly  aware,  what  abstraction  has 
actually  been  made,  what  other  aspects  have  been 
deliberately  left  out — aspects  which  must  just  as  de- 
liberately be  added  on  before  the  explanation  can  pretend 
to  any  completeness.  The  Pythagorean  attempt  to 
explain  Things  by  numbers  is  one  of  the  most  obvious 
of  such  mistakes.  Nowadays  it  may  indeed  sound 


iv  THE  LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  199 

absurd  to  say  that  because  all  things  are  numerable, 
they  must  therefore  be  caused  by  numbers.  But  are 
modern  philosophers  quite  sure  that  because  they  have 
outgrown  this  particular  error,  they  are  quite  free  from 
the  taint  of  the  same  fallacy?  Is  there  not  a  similar 
error  in  thinking  that  because  all  things  are  material 
and  in  motion,  therefore  they  must  have  not  only  their 
ultimate,  but  their  complete  explanation  in  terms  of 
matter  and  motion,  whatever  other  qualities  they  may 
possess  in  addition. 

But  before  proceeding  further  it  will  be  well  to  remind 
ourselves  what  is  meant  by  "  explanation  "  in  the  scientific 
sense.  A  scientific  explanation  may  give  one  of  two 
things  :  either  it  may  give  an  accurate  quantitative 
formula,  e.g.  Newton's  law  of  gravitation  ;  or  in  cases  of 
causation  the  antecedent  conditions.  Both  modes  are 
highly  abstract,  and  the  latter  suffers  from  an  inherent 
defect :  for  "  the  true  nature  of  the  cause,"  as  Professor 
Andrew  Seth l  puts  it,  "  only  becomes  apparent  in  the 
effect."  The  antecedents  in  abstraction  from  their  conse- 
quents are  not  real  antecedents  at  all.  Cause  and  effect 
in  reality  are  inseparable.  Taken  by  themselves  the 
antecedents  do  not  explain  the  consequent  ;  taken 
together  with  the  fact  of  their  combination  and  of  their 
change  they  are  identical  with  the  consequent  :  for  the 
continuous  process  involved  in  causation  always  eludes,  as 
we  saw,  intellectual  expression. 

§  5.  At  the  same  time,  however,  that  we  have  to  admit 
this  ultimate  difference  between  abstract  Thought  and  con- 
crete Things,  the  very  possibility  of  science  at  all  postulates 
the  intelligibility  of  the  universe.  It  is  a  postulate  which 
the  most  elementary  science  has  to  take  for  granted,  and 
which  is  confirmed  by  each  new  discovery.  We  cannot, 
or  at  any  rate  we  need  not,  go  so  far  as  Hegel  and  say 
that  the  rational  is  the  real  and  the  real  is  the  rational, 
but  we  cannot  advance  one  step  without  assuming  in  some 
sense  or  other  the  rationality  of  Things.  Whether  we 
take  it  with  Plato's  Socrates  as  a  gift  of  gods  to  men  sent 

1   Man  s  Place  in  the  Cosmos,  p.   15. 


200  G.   E.   UNDERBILL  iv 

down  by  some  Prometheus,  or  whether  we  call  it  with 
Mill  the  Uniformity  of  Nature,  or  with  the  late  Duke  of 
Argyll  the  Reign  of  Law,  we  must  admit  that  all  things 
are  made  up  of  the  One  and  the  Many  and  have 
determinateness  and  indeterminateness  in  themselves. 
This  again  is  an  ultimate  fact  of  our  experience  and  for 
it  we  can  bring  forward  no  reason  or  explanation.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  their  oneness  they  become  intelligible 
to  us,  and  the  task  of  all  science  is  to  discover  this  one- 
ness, but  their  multiplicity  or  manifoldness  which  staggers 
our  intellect  and  is  utterly  beyond  its  grasp,  is  equally 
an  ultimate  fact  of  experience,  and  as  such  must  be 
taken  into  account,  if  the  system  of  our  Thought  is  to  be 
made  in  any  degree  adequate  to  the  system  of  Things. 

§  6.  But  these  two  fundamental  postulates  of  science, 
the  first  that  Things  become,  the  second  that  Things  are 
both  one  and  many,  evidently  involve  a  third  postulate, 
quite  as  fundamental,  if  not  more  so — the  postulate  of 
Things.  What  right  have  we  to  talk  about  Things  at  all? 
It  is  again  only  our  experience  that  gives  us  this  right. 
For  us  Things  are  a  product  of  this  experience,  and  in 
our  experience  Things  are  only  given  in  correlation  with 
Thoughts.  As  Kant  put  it,  our  Understanding  makes 
Nature,  but  does  not  create  it.  For  purposes  of  science, 
however,  we  abstract  Things  from  our  Thoughts,  and  for 
this  purpose  Lotze's  l  definition  of  a  Thing  is  as  good  as 
can  be  arrived  at.  "  A  Thing,"  he  says,  "  is  the  realised 
individual  law  of  its  procedure."  By  this  definition  he 
implies  that  Things — at  any  rate  as  they  are  given  us  in 
perception — are  both  particular  and  changeable,  change- 
able, however,  only  according  to  a  law  which  connects 
the  various  changes,  properties,  or  phenomena  of  the  thing 
with  each  other  ;  and  that  this  law  realised  here  and  now 
in  a  particular  instance  constitutes  the  Thing  :  for  a  law 
"has  no  reality  except  in  the  case  of  its  application."  In 
other  words  the  individual  thing  of  perception  is  both  a 
universalised  particular  and  a  particularised  universal  :  or 
as  Mr.  Bradley2  puts  it,  "  the  individual  is  both  a  concrete 

1    Metaphysic,  p.  68,   Kng.  trans.  2  Logic,  p.   175. 


iv  THE  LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  201 

particular  and  a  concrete  universal.  ...  So  far  as  it  is 
one  against  other  individuals,  it  is  particular.  So  far  as  it 
is  the  same  throughout  its  diversity,  it  is  universal." 

§  7.  This  essay,  however,  is  not  the  place  for  a  meta- 
physical discussion  upon  the  ultimate  nature  of  the  real, 
or  matter,  or  substance.  Here  it  is  necessary  merely  to 
point  out  the  postulates  of  all  scientific  thinking  without 
attempting  to  justify  them.  We  must  then  in  some  sense 
take  it  for  granted  that  Things  exist,  that  Things  change, 
that  Things  are  one  and  many,  that  Things  are  intelligible. 
We  must  also  postulate  that  Things  are  in  time  and 
space,  and  are  acted  upon  by  force.  In  fact  these 
postulates  are  already  involved  in  those  already  taken  for 
granted.  For  nothing  (if  psychical  things  be  excluded) 
can  change  except  in  time  and  in  space,  and  except  there 
be  some  force,  external  or  internal,  to  make  it  change. 

III.  GAPS  IN  NATURE  AND  IN  KNOWLEDGE 

8.  The  ideal  of  most  men  of  science  from  the  early 
Atomists  downwards  has  been  to  explain  "the  multiplicity 
of  things  by  the  help  of  changeable  relations  between  un- 
changeable elements."  Matter,  it  has  been  assumed,  is 
homogeneous,  and  the  difference  of  its  apparent  qualities  is 
to  be  accounted  for  by  the  varying  arrangements,  or  motions 
of  its  ultimate  particles,  for  entia  non  sunt  multiplicanda 
prteter  neccssitatcm.  If  then  we  can  once  arrive  at  these 
unchangeable  elements,  the  conception  of  Evolution  must 
obviously  be  inapplicable  to  them.  Men  of  science  have 
also  been  haunted  by  another  ideal,  expressed  in  the  old 
maxim  Natura  non  facit  salt  ion,  or  in  its  more  modern 
form,  the  law  of  continuity.  Guided  by  these  ideals  they 
have  been  extremely  unwilling  to  admit  the  existence  of 
any  gaps  in  their  science;  and  if  in  the  existing  imperfect 
state  of  knowledge,  they  have  been  obliged  to  admit  the 
actual  presence  of  such  gaps,  they  have  always  hoped  that 
the  advance  of  knowledge  would  tend  to  fill  them  up 
entirely  or  reduce  them  to  a  minimum.  At  the  present 
time  the  most  serious  gaps  are  the  gap  between  the 


202  G.  E.   UNDERHILL 


IV 


inorganic  and  organic  worlds  and  the  gap  between  life  and 
mind.  As  a  consequence  the  existing  sciences  fall  into 
three  corresponding  groups — the  sciences  dealing  with 
physical  phenomena,  like  Physics  and  Chemistry,  the 
sciences  dealing  with  vital  phenomena,  like  Animal  and 
Vegetable  Physiology,  and  the  sciences  dealing  with 
mental  phenomena,  Psychology,  Ethics,  etc. 

We  must  therefore  ask  how  far  the  conception  of 
Evolution  in  its  wider  sense  of  "  Becoming  "  is  applicable 
in  these  three  groups  taken  severally. 

IV.  EVOLUTION  IN  THE  INORGANIC  SPHERE 

§  9.  As  already  mentioned,  Sir  Norman  Lockyer  sees  an 
exact  parallel  between  the  evolution  of  the  inorganic,  and 
that  of  the  organic  world.  "  In  the  problems  of  inorganic 
evolution,"  he  says,1  "  which  we  have  now  to  face,  it  is 
sufficiently  obvious  that  we  have  to  deal  with  a  continu- 
ously increasing  complexity  of  chemical  forms,  precisely 
as  in  organic  evolution  the  biologist  has  tried  to  deal,  and 
has  dealt  successfully,  with  a  like  increase  of  complexity 
of  organic  forms." 

Again  he  speaks  of  the  material  world  being  "built 
up  of  the  same  matter  under  the  same  laws,"  and  he  can 
see  no  break  in  the  order  of  material  evolution  from  end 
to  end.  The  chemical  elements,  he  believes,  arc  not 
ultimate.  He  quotes  with  approval  the  words  of  Dr. 
Preston  :  ~ — "  We  are  led  to  suspect  that  not  only  is  the 
atom  a  complex  composed  of  an  association  of  different 
ions,  but  that  the  atoms  of  those  substances  which  lie  in 
the  same  chemical  group  are  perhaps  built  up  from  the 
same  kind  of  ions,  or  at  least  from  ions  which  possess  the 
same  e/M,3  and  that  the  differences  which  exist  in  the 
materials  thus  constituted  arise  more  from  the  manner 
of  association  of  the  ions  in  the  atom  than  from  differ- 
ences in  the  fundamental  character  of  the  ions  which 
build  up  the  atoms." 

1  Nature,  l.xi.  p.   131. 
2  Ibid.  p.   133.  3  e ^electric  charge  ;   m  =  m;if,s. 


iv  THE  LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  203 

§  10.  These  attempts  to  express  the  differences  of  the 
chemical  elements  in  terms  of  matter  and  motion  may 
be  taken  as  typical  of  all  theories  which  attempt  to 
reduce  qualitative  differences  to  quantitative  differences, 
or  to  describe  secondary  qualities  in  terms  of  primary 
qualities.  The  first  point  to  notice  is,  that  the  problem 
of  ultimate  origin  or  first  cause  is — and  with  reason — left 
untouched.  Matter  and  motion  are  taken  for  granted  : 
indeed  for  physical  science  there  is  no  need  to  go  behind 
them.  Matter,  further,  is  assumed  to  be  homogeneous, 
and  motion  to  manifest  certain  unchangeable  laws,  like 
Newton's  laws  of  motion,  etc.  Evidently  therefore  there 
can  be  no  evolution  either  of  homogeneous  matter  as  such, 
nor  of  the  unchangeable  laws  of  motion.  Evolution  for 
the  man  of  science  has  no  absolute  beginning.  His  task  is 
simply  to  describe  the  process  as  exactly  as  possible  from 
the  given  state  of  matter  and  motion  x  to  the  state  y 
which  is  ex  hypothesi  later  in  the  order  of  time.  Thus,  if 
we  take  the  Nebular  Hypothesis  of  the  evolution  of  our 
planetary  system,  we  by  no  means  get  back  to  the 
beginning  of  things.  Theoretically,  it  must  be  just  as 
possible  to  give  a  scientific  description — in  other  words, 
a  determinate  and  exact  description  in  terms  of  matter 
and  motion — of  the  assumed  nebulous  state  as  to  give 
a  scientific  description  of  the  planetary  system  in  its 
present  state.  The  evidence  may  indeed  be  more  difficult 
to  collect  and  formulate,  but  it  lies  in  pari  niatcria. 
Secondly  it  is  remarkable  that  such  theories  all  more  or 
less  tacitly  assume  that  the  qualitative  differences  of  the 
chemical  elements  and  other  supposed  composite  effects 
are  fully  explained  by  their  quantitative  differences,  which, 
it  is  hoped,  may  ultimately  be  measured  according  to 
some  unit  or  units  of  numerical  relations.  This  surely  is 
a  large  assumption  and  must  not  be  allowed  to  pass 
unchallenged.  Docs  it  necessarily  follow  that  if  .r  be 
taken  as  their  unit  of  measurement — because  one  chemical 
element  can  be  described  as  2O.v  and  another  as  30.1",  all 
their  differences  are  traceable  to  their  numerical  difference, 
icu'?  To  take  an  analogous  instance:  an  organ,  a 


204  G-   E-   UNDERHILL  iv 

piano,  and  a  violin  may  all  sound  the  same  note,  which 
may  be  numerically  measured  by  its  number  of  vibrations 
e.g.  50  per  second,  yet  at  the  same  time  the  timbre  given 
to  this  same  note  by  the  three  instruments  is  so  different 
that  it  can  be  at  once  detected  even  by  the  most  un- 
trained ear.  These  differences  of  timbre  again  can  be 
numerically  measured  in  terms  of  subordinate  vibrations, 
and  are  recorded  on  the  metallic  discs  of  the  phonograph 
quite  as  distinctly  as  the  different  notes  themselves.  That 
there  is  an  essential  connection  between  sounds  and 
vibrations  is  sufficiently  obvious.  But  that  sounds  arc 
vibrations  and  that  vibrations  are  sounds,  is  not  so 
obvious  ;  for  they  may  be,  for  all  we  know,  joint  effects 
of  an  unknown  cause  y.  Sound  we  know  as  a  perception 
of  hearing :  the  minute  vibrations  we  know  as  a  conception 
abstracted  from  our  perceptions  of  sight  and  touch.  How 
are  we  to  pass  from  the  evidence  of  the  one  sense  to  the 
evidence  of  the  other  ? 

§11.  To  return  to  the  chemical  elements,  there  is 
similarly  no  evidence  to  show  that  the  differences  of  the 
chemical  elements  from  each  other  are  exhausted  by  such 
differences  as  they  possess,  which  are  capable  of  being 
expressed  in  terms  of  matter  and  motion.  To  apply  the 
analogy  just  adduced,  is  it  not  quite  conceivable  that  two 
different  chemical  elements  might  be  describable  in 
identical  numerical  terms  of  matter  and  motion  and  yet 
possess  such  a  different  timbre,  so  to  speak,  that  their  real 
difference  could  not  be  denied  ?  Such  hypotheses  can 
only  be  taken  to  give  any  hope  of  an  ultimate  explanation 
of  Things  on  the  assumption — surely  a  very  large  one — 
that  there  is  nothing  real  in  the  universe  except  matter, 
motion,  and  their  laws  of  action  and  interaction.  Similarly 
in  the  sphere  of  colour  :  blue  may  be  described  as  light  of 
wave  length  x  and  red  as  light  of  wave  length  y :  the 
primary  qualities,  that  is  to  say,  manifested  by  these  two 
colours,  may  be  perfectly  numerable  or  measurable.  None 
the  less,  red  is  still  red  and  blue  is  still  blue.  It  is  an 
attempt  to  account  for  a  complex  whole  by  its  most 
measurable  part  or  aspect,  while  all  the  time  the  relation 


iv  THE   LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  205 

between  the  part  and  the  whole  remains  quite  un- 
intelligible. It  is  like  saying  that,  because  this  man  is 
just  and  has  two  legs,  the  two  legs  are  the  cause  of  his 
justice.  In  a  word  these  theories  one  and  all  imply  or 
are  apt  to  imply  that  the  primary  qualities  alone  are  real, 
in  Locke's  words,  "  do  really  exist  in  the  bodies  them- 
selves," "  are  in  the  things  themselves,  whether  they  are 
perceived  or  no  ;  and  upon  their  different  modifications  it 
is  that  the  secondary  qualities  depend."  Berkeley  and 
Hume  demonstrated  the  fallacy  of  this  position  long  ago 
and  no  one  has  ventured  since  seriously  to  impugn  their 
arguments.  As  Mr.  Bradley  has  clearly  put  it,1  "  the  line 
of  reasoning,  which  showed  that  secondary  qualities  are 
not  real,  has  equal  force  as  applied  to  primary.  The 
extended  comes  to  us  only  by  relation  to  an  organ  [of 
sense]  ;  and,  whether  the  organ  is  touch  or  is  sight  or 
muscle-feeling — or  whatever  else  it  may  be — makes  no 
difference  to  the  argument.  For,  in  any  case,  the  thing 
is  perceived  by  us  through  an  affection  of  our  body,  and 
never  without  that."  And  again,  "  without  secondary 
quality  extension  [which  is  involved  in  all  the  so-called 
primary  qualities]  is  not  conceivable."  It  is  needless  here 
to  reproduce  the  various  arguments  at  length.  Bacon 
complained  of  the  old  Scholastic  Logic  as  being  subtilitati 
natures  longc  iinpar.  Surely  some  of  our  scientists  of  to- 
day are  victims  of  the  same  mistake  :  they  accept  as 
ultimate  facts  the  immutability  of  matter,  the  conservation 
of  energy,  the  transmutation  of  force,  the  development  of 
the  various  sense  organs  from  a  primary  sense  of  touch  or 
a  muscular  sense,  and  taking  any  concrete  thing,  they 
strip  off  all  its  secondary  qualities  as  in  themselves  of 
no  importance,  being  only  manifestations  or  modifications 
of  its  primary  qualities  ;  then  they  take  its  primary 
qualities  and  describe  them  in  terms  of  some  assumed 
units  of  measurement.  This  done,  they  expect  us  to 
believe  that  even  if  they  have  not  explained  the  nature  of 
the  real  thing  as  it  is  in  itself,  yet  they  have  given  us  the 
whole  of  its  phenomenal  nature,  and  that  nothing  more 

1   Appearance  and  Reality,  p.    14. 


206  G.   E.   UNDERHILL  iv 

need  or  can  be  known  about  it.  It  may  of  course  very 
well  be  that  the  relation  of  the  primary  to  the  secondary 
qualities  involves  an  insoluble  problem  :  the  important 
point  is  that  it  is  a  problem  and  must  not  be  passed  over 
in  such  phrases  as — "  all  chemical  atoms  have  a  common 
basis,  and  build  new  mental  images  on  this  basis " l— 
phrases  which  imply  that  matter  and  motion  alone  are  real, 
all  other  qualities  being  more  or  less  mental  illusions. 

So  far  then  we  have  arrived  at  this  result.  Natural 
science  for  its  purposes  takes  account  only  of  the 
numerable  or  measurable  qualities  of  things,  and  in  dealing 
with  secondary  qualities,  like  colour,  sound,  and  taste, 
regards  them  as  results  of  their  primary  qualities,  without, 
however,  explaining  their  causal  connection  ;  and  is  also 
very  apt  to  speak  of  them,  as  Locke  did,  as  "  the  certain 
bulk,  figure,  and  motion  of  the  insensible  parts  in  the 
bodies  themselves." 

§  12.  Two  further  points  in  the  above  analysis  here 
call  for  notice  :  the  first  is  the  predominance  of  the  mental 
factor  in  the  primary  qualities  and  their  estimation  or 
description  in  various  units  of  measurement  ;  the  second 
is  the  limitation  which  this  abstract  view  of  things  imposes 
upon  the  problem  of  Evolution. 

To  begin  with  the  first  point.  Before  any  thing,  e.g. 
the  motion  of  a  billiard  ball,  can  be  made  the  subject 
of  scientific  investigation  at  all,  it  must  undergo  a  large 
amount  of  mental  preparation.  It  cannot  with  any  hope 
of  success  be  treated  in  its  concrete  entirety.  It  must 
be  taken  as  an  instance  of  the  operation  of  a  universal 
law  or  laws.  We  must  neglect  as  irrelevant  to  our 
purpose  many  of  the  particular  circumstances  that 
surround  its  motion,  like,  e.g.  its  colour,  its  material,  the 
colour  of  the  cloth  on  which  it  rolls,  the  time  of  day, 
the  place,  the  person  who  rolls  it,  etc.  etc.  All  these 
circumstances  taken  together  make  up  the  concrete 
individual  phenomenon,  but  for  our  purpose  we  abstract 
them,  until  we  have  left  one  or  more  aspects  of  the 
phenomenon  only,  sufficiently  simple  for  our  science  of 

1    Lockyer,  \aturf,  Ixi.  p.  297. 


iv  THE  LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  207 

mechanics  to  be  able  to  cope  with.  In  other  words, 
having  thus  arrived  at  the  mechanical  aspect  of  the 
problem,  the  science  is  able  to  give  a  mechanical 
explanation  of  it :  but  the  power  to  arrive  at  this 
aspect,  is  entirely  due  to  the  mind's  power  of  abstraction. 
This  is  no  mere  reassertion  of  the  epistemological  truth 
that  the  unit  of  knowledge  is  subject  plus  object  —  the 
interrelation  of  the  knowing  mind  and  the  object  known 
— so  that  we  can  never  arrive  either  at  subjects  per  se 
or  at  objects  per  se.  The  point  for  emphasis  is  that  the 
objects  of  all  mechanical  sciences  are  not  the  things  of 
common  experience  as  such  at  all,  but  only  one  particular 
aspect  of  them,  namely,  their  primary  qualities,  and  that 
this  aspect,  like  all  other  particular  aspects,  is  arrived  at 
by  mental  abstraction.  Equally  true  is  it  that  the 
mechanical  explanation  or  description  of  these  primary 
qualities,  when  it  is  given,  is  just  as  much  a  mental 
product.  Though  it  deals  with  matter  and  motion,  it  is 
expressed  in  terms  of  law,  number,  or  measure. 

Historically,  the  conception  of  a  Law  of  Nature  is  of 
course  anthropomorphic.  But  natural  science  uses  the 
term  not  in  its  juridical  sense,  but  in  the  sense  of  a 
uniformity  of  sequences  or  coexistences.  To  arrive  at 
such  uniformities,  however,  we  have  to  compare  instances 
together,  and  to  abstract  from  their  individual  character- 
istics the  identical  process  in  them  to  which,  having  thus 
abstracted  it,  we  give  the  name  of  law.  The  law  we 
arrive  at  is  the  result  of  this  abstraction  and  without  it 
is  impossible.  The  applicability  of  such  conceptions  to 
the  multiplicity  of  phenomena  is  one  of  the  best  evidences 
of  the  rationality  of  things.  All  Nature  is  akin,  as  Pindar 
sang,  and  there  is  as  much  Mind  in  Things  as  there  is 
in  ourselves.  Similarly,  when  we  use  measures  or 
numbers  in  our  mechanical  descriptions,  not  only  are  we 
obliged  to  take  some  arbitrary  standard  like  a  mile  or  a 
minute  for  our  unit,  but  the  very  processes  of  numbering 
or  of  measuring  are  abstract  mental  creations.  So  true 
is  it  that  even  in  the  inorganic  kingdom  it  is  rather  mind 
that  explains  matter  than  matter  that  explains  mind. 


208  G.   E.   UNDERBILL 


IV 


§  13.   To  come  now  to  our  second  point,  the  limitation 
imposed  by  natural  science  on  the  problem  of  Evolution. 
"  We  now  know,"  we  are  told,1  "  that  heat,  sound,  light, 
chemical  action,  electricity,  and  magnetism  are  all  modes 
of    motion "  ; 2     the    different    physical     forces    may    be 
converted    from    one    form    into    another :    heat    may    be 
changed    into    molar    movement    or    movement  of  mass  ; 
this  in  turn  into  light  or  sound,  and  then  into  electricity, 
and  so  forth.      Accurate  measurement  of  the  quantity  of 
force  which  is  used  in  this  metamorphosis  has  shown  that 
it  is   "  constant "   or   "  unchanged."      That   is    to    say,   the 
Evolutionist  has  for  his  problem  in  the  inorganic  kingdom 
— from  the  mechanical  point  of  view — to  show,  describe, 
enumerate,  or  measure  the  various   motions  whereby  the 
different  atoms,  ions,  or  particles  of  homogeneous  matter 
assume  the  configurations  or  arrangements  that  constitute 
in  the  first  instance  the  various  chemical   elements  ;  then 
how  these  elements  under  these  same  unchangeable   laws 
of  motion  get  into  a  nebulous  state  ;   again  how  under  the 
same  laws  the  nebulae  pass  into  more  shapely  planetary  or 
other  systems  ;   and   finally   how  in   each   planet  or  at  any 
rate  some  of  the  planets,  oceans,  and  continents,  mountains 
and    plains,    lakes    and    rivers,   are    formed    by   the    same 
agencies.      Matter  and   motion,   motion  and    matter — and 
their   quantitative  relations,  are  to  mechanical   science  the 
real  essences  of  all  things.      This,  then,  is  the  problem  of 
Evolution  for  mechanical  science  :   given  as   permanencies, 
homogeneous   matter   and   certain    unchangeable    laws    of 
motion,  which  ex  hypothesi  are  liable  to  no  evolution — to 
trace   the  motions  whereby  the  ultimate   particles  assume 
different    positions    or    configurations    at    different    times 
and     places.        When     the    mechanical    Evolutionist    has 
solved  this  problem,  he  has  achieved    his   task- — a  task   in 
itself    legitimate,    noble    and    useful,   but    not    exhaustive. 
For  Nature  to  the  mechanical  Evolutionist  is  an   abstrac- 
tion,   a     Nature     of    primary    qualities,    not     Nature     in 
her    concrete    reality.        In    reality    Nature    is    not    thus 

1    Ilaeckel,  Riddle  of  the  Universe,  p.  235,   ling,   trans. 
'2  Ibid.   [>.   217. 


iv  THE  LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  209 

separated  from  her  secondary  qualities  nor  from  her 
relations  to  mind.  Nature  has  indeed  to  be  studied  in 
parts  and  in  aspects,  because  citius  emergit  veritas  ex 
trrore  quant  ex  confuswne.  But  Nature  herself  is  a  whole, 
and  the  parts  are  only  what  they  are  by  their  relations  to 
this  whole.  The  parts,  the  aspects,  the  qualities,  the 
relations  which  we  have  thus  deliberately  abstracted,  must 
be  scientifically  described  and  restored  to  their  proper 
places  again,  if  our  knowledge  about  Nature  is  ever  to  be 
at  all  adequate  to  Nature  herself.  "  For  we  know  in 
part  :  .  .  .  but  when  that  which  is  perfect  is  come,  that 
which  is  in  part  shall  be  done  away." 

§14.  Before  leaving  this  subject  we  may  note  that 
some  scientists  in  treating  of  inorganic  evolution  use  the 
Darwinian  term  "  Natural  Selection  "  to  describe  what  they 
consider  to  be  the  most  important  of  the  causal  agencies 
at  work.  A  word  must  be  said  later  on  ;  as  to  the  anthro- 
pomorphic metaphor  involved  in  the  term.  Their  meaning 
obviously  is  that  among  all  possible  alternatives  the  present 
state  of  the  universe  is  due  to  blind  chance.  "  Since 
impartial  study  of  the  evolution  of  the  world,"  ~  as  Haeckel 
puts  it,  "  teaches  us  that  there  is  no  definite  aim  and  no 
special  purpose  to  be  traced  in  it,  there  seems  to  be  no 
alternative  but  to  leave  everything  to  blind  chance.  .  .  . 
Neither  in  the  evolution  of  the  heavenly  bodies  nor  in 
that  of  the  crust  of  our  earth  do  we  find  any  trace  of  a 
controlling  purpose — all  is  the  result  of  chance."  This 
may  indeed  be  admitted  if  "  chance "  be  taken  in  its 
strictly  scientific  sense,  as  equivalent  to  "  a  cause  or  causes 
unknown  to  human  calculation  "  ;  and  it  is  in  this  sense 
that  Haeckel  himself  takes  it,  for  he  adds :  "  This, 
however,  does  not  prevent  us  from  recognising  in  each 
'  chance  '  event,  as  we  do  in  the  evolution  of  the  entire 
cosmos,  the  universal  sovereignty  of  nature's  supreme  la\v, 
the  law  of  substance."  In  other  words,  if  there  be  taken 
for  granted,  as  necessary  presuppositions,  particles  of 
homogeneous  matter  and  all  the  known  laws  of  Nature, 
then  we  may  say  that  the  present  slate  of  the  cosmos  is 

1    Infr.  §  19.  -    i  l.icckcl,  I\':JJ!e  (y  '.he  l'>n:-ei"-f.  \>.   218,   I'.nt;.   ti.nu 


210  G.   E.   UNDERHILL  iv 

due  to  the  action  upon  these  particles  of  all  the  known 
laws  of  Nature  plus  chance,  where  "  chance  "  means  other 
uniform  causes  that  are  unknown.  Surely  this  is  a  mere 
truism,  which  properly  interpreted  serves  only  to  emphasise 
once  more  the  supremacy  of  Mind.  For  all  known  laws  of 
Nature  are  ipso  facto  intelligible  and  general  formula? ;  there- 
fore by  analogy  we  have  every  reason  to  suspect  that  the 
unknown  laws  of  Nature,  could  they  be  discovered,  would 
also  be  intelligible  formulae,  and  therefore  in  like  manner 
sure  evidence  of  intelligible  and  intelligent  agency — in  a 
word  of  Mind.  If,  however  the  emphasis  be  laid  on  the 
adjective  "  blind  "  and  the  cosmos  be  consequently  taken 
as  a  purely  "  fortuitous  concourse  of  atoms,"  not  only  is 
this  utterly  against  all  scientific  evidence  ;  but  the  chances 
of  there  being  any  "  cosmos  "  at  all  are  mathematically  nil 
— one  against  infinity.  This  amounts  to  the  denial  of 
any  intelligible  order  or  rationality  in  things,  and  without 
some  such  rationality  science  can  have  no  object.  In  a 
word  there  can  be  no  science. 

V.   EVOLUTION   IN  THE  ORGANIC  SPHERE 

§  15.  When  we  pass  from  inorganic  to  organic  evolu- 
tion, we  cross  the  unbridgeable  gap  recognised  by  all  men 
of  science.  Thus  Sir  John  Burdon-Sanderson,  speaking  in 
I893,1  tells  us:  "The  origin  of  life,  the  first  transition 
from  non-living  to  living,  is  a  riddle,  which  lies  outside 
our  scope."  In  other  words  life  must  be  taken  as  an 
ultimate  fact  of  experience.  But  life  is  unknown  to  us 
apart  from  living  organisms,  and  a  living  body  may  be 
defined  in  the  words  of  Sir  Michael  Foster^  as  "a  machine 
doing  work  in  accordance  with  certain  laws  "  :  and  "  we 
may  seek,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  to  trace  out  the  working 
of  the  inner  wheels,  how  these  raise  up  the  lifeless  dust 
into  living  matter,  and  let  the  living  matter  fall  away 
again  into  dust,  giving  rise  to  movement  and  heat.  Or 
wo  may  look  upon  the  individual  life  as  a  link  in  a  long 
chain,  joining  something  which  wont  bcforo  to  something 

;    I'.ntis)'  A'-'OCLition  Addrrs-,   iS*.;.        '-'   Hritisii  As.-ofiiition  Addi-c^,   iai,-... 


iv  THE   LIMITS  OF   EVOLUTION  211 

about  to  come,  a  chain  whose  beginning  lies  hid  in  the 
farthest  past,  and  may  seek  to  know  the  ties  which  bind 
one  life  to  another.  Of  the  problems  presented  by  the 
living  body  viewed  as  a  machine,  some  may  be  spoken  of 
as  mechanical,  others  as  physical,  and  yet  others  as 
chemical,  while  some  are,  apparently  at  least,  none  of 
these."  Here  again  we  see  the  powers  and  uses  of 
mental  abstraction  :  organisms  are  conceived  as  bundles 
of  qualities,  presenting  various  aspects.  For  scientific 
purposes  these  aspects  can  be  detached  from  the  whole 
and  treated  separately  :  thus  organisms  are,  from  one 
point  of  view,  matter  in  motion,  and  as  such  present 
problems  for  mechanical  and  physical  solution  :  from 
another  point  of  view,  animal  heat,  digestion,  etc.,  involve 
chemical  changes  and  are  fit  subjects  for  chemistry  ;  for 
living  bodies  possess  secondary  as  well  as  primary  qualities. 
At  this  point  many  scientists  have  stopped  under  the 
notion,  we  are  told,1  that,  "  however  complicated  may  be 
the  conditions  under  which  vital  energies  manifest  them- 
selves, they  can  be  split  into  processes  which  are  identical 
in  nature  with  those  of  the  non-living  world,  and,  as  a 
corollary  to  this,  that  the  analysing  of  a  vital  process  into 
its  physical  and  chemical  constituents,  so  as  to  bring  these 
constituents  into  measurable  relation  with  physical  or 
chemical  standards,  is  the  only  mode  of  investigating  them 
which  can  lead  to  satisfactory  results.  .  .  .  The  methods 
of  investigation  being  physical  or  chemical,  the  organism 
itself  naturally  came  to  be  considered  as  a  complex  of 
such  processes,  and  nothing  more.  And  in  particular  the 
idea  of  adaptation,  which  is  not  a  consequence  of  organism, 
but  its  essence,  was  in  great  measure  lost  sight  of."  Here- 
then  we  have  a  distinguished  physiologist  reiterating  the 
old  complaint  of  Bacon  already  quoted  that  the  method 
used  is  subtilitati  natures  longe  impar — that  'adaptation,' 
the  ultimate  essence  of  organism  is  lost  sight  of. 

§  1 6.  What,  however,  does  the  professor  mean  by 
'adaptation'?  "Action,"  he  tells 'J  us,"  is  of  its  essence. 
.  .  .  The  activities  of  an  organism  are  naturally  distin- 

'    Hurdon-Sandcrsori,   '.ritish  Association  AiUliv---.,   iHo;.  "  /*•'/. 


212  G.   E.   UNDERHILL  ,v 

guishable  into  two  kinds,  according  as  we  consider  the 
action  of  the  whole  organism  in  its  relation  to  the  external 
world  or  to  other  organisms,  or  the  action  of  the  parts  or 
organs  in  their  relation  to  each  other.  .  .  .  Organised 
nature  as  it  now  presents  itself  to  us  has  become  what 
it  is  by  a  process  of  gradual  perfecting  or  advancement, 
brought  about  by  the  elimination  of  those  organisms 
which  failed  to  obey  the  fundamental  principle  of  adap- 
tation. Each  step  therefore  in  this  evolution  is  a 
reaction  to  external  influences,  the  motive  of  which  is 
essentially  the  same  as  that  by  which  from  moment 
to  moment  the  organism  governs  itself.  And  the  whole 
process  is  a  necessary  outcome  of  the  fact  that  those 
organisms  are  most  prosperous  which  look  best  after  their 
own  welfare."  From  these  passages  two  points  clearly 
emerge  :  the  first  is  that  in  the  opinion  of  the  professor 
the  strictly  biological  attributes  of  organisms  can  never 
find  their  ultimate  explanation  in  mechanical  and  chemical 
processes ;  the  second,  that  adaptation  is  the  most  essential 
characteristic  of  living  organisms,  and  that  this  adaptation 
is  the  result  of  the  interest  of  the  individual  which  is  "  the 
sole  motive  by  which  every  energy  [or  activity]  is  guided." 
In  other  words  the  teleological  factor  is,  according  to  the 
professor,  the  most  important,  and  the  teleological  aspect 
of  organisms  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  their 
mechanical  or  chemical  aspects.  It  is  impossible  without 
them,  but  is  inexplicable  by  them. 

§17.  Again,  an  organism  is  meaningless  without  its 
environment — without  its  relations  to  other  organisms  and 
to  lifeless  things.  The  problem  of  evolution  is  therefore  to 
trace  the  process  of  adaptation  between  the  organism  and 
its  environment.  This  problem  is  strictly  biological — not 
physical  or  chemical — and  cannot  therefore  be  reduced  to 
terms  of  number  or  measurement:  any  explanation1 
therefore  that  can  be  given  must  take  the  form  of  a 
statement,  as  accurate  as  possible,  of  the  antecedent 
conditions  of  the  organism  under  investigation.  Hut  how 
is  this  to  be  done  ?  Logically  the  mode  of  procedure  is 

1  Cf.  sup.  $  4. 


iv  THE  LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  213 

precisely  the  same  as  in  the  inorganic  sciences.  All  the 
postulates  necessary  in  the  latter  have  to  be  taken  for 
granted  and  a  few  more,  like  that  of  life  and  adaptation, 
have  to  be  added  to  them  ;  and  in  addition  to  the  physical 
and  mechanical  laws  of  the  inorganic  sciences  the  biologist 
has  to  assume  the  working  of  certain  biological  laws, 
arrived  at  by  mental  abstraction  from  the  observation  of 
the  actual  processes  in  living  organisms.  Under  these 
limitations  the  evolution  of  species  is  scientifically  ex- 
plicable. In  other  words,  though  science  can  never  tell 
us  why  nor  even  how  one  species  changes  into  another 
species ;  yet  it  can,  or  at  any  rate  hopes  to,  describe 
accurately  the  antecedent  conditions  of  any  given  stage 
in  the  process.  Thus  to  explain  a  consequent  species  it 
must  show  that  the  antecedent  species  was  transformed 
into  it  in  accordance  with  the  observed  laws  of  Heredity, 
Variation,  Natural  Selection,  etc.  This  is  the  way  in 
which  Darwin  conceived  the  problem.  "It  is  interest- 
ing," he  writes  at  the  end  of  his  Origin  of  Species,  "  to 
reflect  that  these  elaborately  constructed  forms  [i.e.  of 
plant  and  animal  life],  so  different  from  each  other,  and 
dependent  on  each  other  in  so  complex  a  manner, 
have  all  been  produced  by  laws  acting  around  us. 
These  laws,  taken  in  the  largest  sense,  being  Growth  with 
Reproduction  ;  Inheritance  which  is  almost  implied  by 
reproduction  :  Variability  from  the  indirect  and  direct 
action  of  the  conditions  of  life,  and  from  use  and  disuse  : 
a  Ratio  of  Increase  so  high  as  to  lead  to  a  Struggle  for 
Life,  and  as  a  consequence  to  Natural  Selection,  entailing 
Divergence  of  Character  and  the  extinction  of  less- 
improved  forms.  .  .  .  There  is  grandeur  in  this  view  of 
life,  with  its  several  powers,  having  been  originally 
breathed  by  the  Creator  into  a  few  forms  or  into  one  ; 
and  that,  whilst  this  planet  has  gone  cycling  on  according 
to  the  fixed  law  of  gravity,  from  so  simple  a  beginning 
endless  forms  most  beautiful  and  most  wonderful  have 
been,  and  are  being  evolved."  In  other  words,  if  we 
take  for  granted  or  as  ultimate  facts  of  experience  the 
laws  of  Growth  with  Reproduction,  of  Inheritance,  and 


214  G.  E.   UNDERBILL  iv 

of  Variability,  resulting  in  Natural  Selection,  then  it  is 
possible  to  trace  the  evolution  of  species  from  the  past 
stage  x,  through  the  stages  abed  ...  to  the  present 
stage  y.  For  science  it  is  a  process  without  beginning 
and  without  end  ;  we  never  get  to  the  origin  of  species  : 
we  have  to  assume  as  ultimate  principles  Growth, 
Inheritance,  and  Variability,  with  their  consequence 
Natural  Selection  —  the  most  essential  attributes  of  all 
organisms  —  and  with  these  laws  to  help  us,  we  can  in 
some  measure  describe  how  "  endless  forms  most  beautiful 
and  most  wonderful  have  been,  and  are  being  evolved." 
These  laws  are  assumed  to  be  permanent,  and  as  such 
not  liable  to  evolution,  and  yet  at  the  same  time  they 
are  attributes  or  processes  in  the  organisms  which  exhibit 
them,  and  which  are  evolved  according  to  them.  Once 
more  we  find  ourselves  face  to  face  with  the  old  world 
problem  —  the  reconciliation  of  the  Permanent  Unity  of 
Parmenides  with  the  Perpetual  Flux  of  Heraclitus. 

§  i  8.  'Adaptation,'  however — the  teleological  factor — 
we  have  been  told,  is  the  essence  of  organism.  The 
consideration  of  this  dictum  and  its  implications  will 
lead  us  to  a  path  which  is,  philosophically,  much  more 
hopeful  Does  '  Adaptation,'  we  may  ask,  necessarily 
imply  '  design '  or  '  purpose,'  whether  conscious  or 
unconscious  ?  Many,  perhaps  most,  scientists,  have 
abandoned  the  old  meaning  of  conscious  purpose—  and 
for  the  very  good  reason  that  they  can  get  on  very  well 
without  it.  For  science,  as  such,  cannot  know  agencies, 
but  only  the  products  of  agencies  :  just  as  e.g.  psychology 
cannot  know  faculties,  but  only  the  products  of  faculties. 
But  it  follows  by  no  means  that  what  we  cannot  know 
in  the  sense  of  forming  an  idea  or  image  of  it,  cannot 
exist.  In  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  we  can  know  an 
animal  in  its  earlier  state  a  and  in  its  later  state  b.  But 
as  Professor  Burdon- Sanderson  puts  it,  "to  assert  that 
the  link  between  a  and  b  is  mechanical,  for  no  better 
reason  than  that  /;  always  follows  <7,  is  an  error  of 
statement,  which  is  apt  to  lead  the  incautious  reader  or 
hearer  to  imagine  that  the  relation  between  a  and  b  is 


iv  THE  LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  215 

understood,  when  in  fact  its  nature  may  be  wholly 
unknown."  Until  Biology  can  give  antecedents  for 
Adaptation,  Heredity,  and  Variability,  it  has  to  take 
them  as  ultimate  facts  or  principles,  and  to  work  with 
them  as  such  :  it  does  not  and  need  not  concern  itself 
with  the  further  question  of  the  Critical  Philosophy — how 
are  they  possible  ?  This  further  question  is  the  business 
of  the  philosopher,  when  he  is  dealing  with  ultimate 
biological  problems,  just  as  in  Mechanics  he  has  to 
discuss  the  presuppositions  of  matter,  motion,  and  force  ; 
and,  if  in  this  sphere  he  can  frame  his  answer  on  the 
same  lines  as  his  answer  to  the  ultimate  mechanical 
problems,  he  approaches  nearer  to  the  Monistic  ideal 
which  is  the  goal  of  each  science  in  its  separate  sphere 
as  well  as  of  philosophy  as  a  whole.  '  Adaptation  '  then 
is  the  essence  of  organic  life,  and  adaptation  necessarily 
implies  the  adaptation  of  means  to  ends.  But  whence 
is  this  conception  derived  ?  There  can,  of  course,  be 
only  one  answer  :  from  our  own  conscious  adaptation 
of  means  to  ends  in  practical  matters.  So  much  every 
biologist  will  admit  :  but  most  will  maintain  that  the 
use  of  the  term  in  respect  of  organic  growths  is  a  mere 
metaphor,  and  that  we  cannot  draw  any  inference  from 
the  suitability  of  the  metaphor  to  the  operation  of  any 
conscious  purpose  or  design  in  organic  structures. 
Scientifically  they  are  perfectly  right,  because  there  is 
not  and  from  the  nature  of  things  cannot  be  any 
evidence  of  consciousness,  such  as  \ve  know  it  in  ourselves, 
as  present  in  vegetables  or  in  animals,  whether  low  or 
high  in  the  scale,  outside  the  human  animal  :  to  science 
adaptation  is  a  law  —  expressed  ipso  facto  in  rational 
terms  —  under  which  a  great  multiplicity  of  particular 
phenomena  may  be  brought.  What  lies  behind  it, 
biology  does  not  know,  because  there  is  no  biological 
evidence. 

§  1 9.  But  the  philosopher,  remembering  how  in  the 
mechanical  and  chemical  sciences  the  rational  conceptions 
of  law,  number,  and  figure  alone  brought  order  into  the 
chaos  of  the  manifold,  will  see  in  biological  adaptation  no 


216  G.   E.   UNDERHILL  iv 

mere  metaphor,  but,  reasoning  by  analogy,  will  see 
positive  evidence  of  rational  agency.  Just  as  he  saw  the 
physicist  and  chemist  compelled  to  interpret  the  relations 
of  matter,  motion,  and  force  in  terms  of  reason,  and 
inferred  that  our  minds  were  able  thus  to  interpret 
inorganic  Nature  because  somehow  there  was  a  like  mind 
in  her,  so  here  again  he  sees  the  biologist  unable  to 
advance  a  step  without  the  rational  conception  of 
'  adaptation,'  and  in  the  same  way  argues  that  such 
interpretation  can  only  be  successful  on  the  hypothesis 
that  somehow  there  is  in  organic  Nature  a  reason 
similar  to  our  own,  which  adapts  her  means  to  her  ends. 
"  If  man  can  by  patience,"  writes  Darwin,1  "  select 
variations  useful  to  him,  why,  under  changing  and 
complex  conditions  of  life,  should  not  variations  useful  to 
Nature's  living  products  often  arise,  and  be  preserved  or 
selected  ?  What  limit  can  be  put  to  this  power,  acting 
during  long  ages  and  rigidly  scrutinising  the  whole 
constitution,  structure,  and  habits  of  each  creature — 
favouring  the  good  and  rejecting  the  bad."  Over  and 
over  again  Darwin  thus  personifies  Nature  and  he  does  so 
because  he  cannot  help  it — neither  is  there  any  reason 
why  he  ought  tc  help  it.  For  our  own  conscious  mind  is 
the  only  key  we  possess  to  unlock  the  secrets  of  Nature, 
and  if  this  key  will  not  fit,  we  have  no  other.  In  a  word, 
the  evolutionist  in  the  organic  kingdom,  proceeds  in 
precisely  the  same  way  as  the  evolutionist  in  the 
inorganic  kingdom.  Like  him  he  starts  with  matter, 
motion,  and  force,  and  chemical  change  :  in  addition  he 
assumes  as  ultimate  facts  or  principles  life  and  the  laws  of 
life,  adaptation,  reproduction,  variation,  etc.  He  makes 
no  attempt  to  give  any  evolutional  genesis  of  these  first 
principles  ;  to  him  they  are  permanent  causes  :  and  then 
having  assumed  all  this,  he  describes  with  as  scientific 
accuracy  as  possible  how  the  organism  x  changes  into  the 
organism  y  through  the  intermediate  stages  abed  .  .  . 
And  his  description  is  successful  and  convincing,  but  only 
under  these  limitations. 

1    Origin  of  Spfcifs,  new  edition,    1900,  p,  643. 


iv  THE  LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  217 

VI.  EVOLUTION  IN  THE  SPHERE  OF  CONSCIOUSNESS 

§  20.  But  little  space  is  left  for  the  consideration  of 
the  Mental  and  Moral  Sciences,  which  come  next  in  order  ; 
but  the  limitations  under  which  the  evolutionist  proceeds 
in  this  sphere  are  so  very  similar  that  so  long  an 
exposition  is  hardly  necessary.  In  the  Mental  sciences  it 
makes  little  difference  from  the  point  of  view  of  this  essay 
whether  the  evolutionist  be  a  psycho-physicist  or  a  pure 
psychologist.  If  he  be  the  former,  he  will  start  with  the 
principles  of  biology  and  attempt  to  give  a  history  of  the 
successive  nerve -states  and  brain -states  in  the  lower 
animals  and  in  man  which  precede  and  which  follow  the 
facts  of  feeling  and  of  consciousness.  But  just  as  life  was 
an  ultimate  fact  and  insoluble  problem  to  the  biologist,  so 
here  feeling  and  consciousness  are  ultimate  facts  and 
insoluble  problems  to  the  psycho-physicist.  "  There  is  a 
gulf,"  says  Dr.  Stout,1  "  fixed  between  the  physical  and 
the  psychical,  of  such  a  nature  that  it  is  impossible  coinci- 
dently  to  observe  an  event  of  the  one  kind  and  an  event 
of  the  other  kind,  so  as  to  apprehend  the  relation  between 
them.  .  .  .  No  analysis  can  discover  in  the  psychological 
fact  any  traces  of  its  supposed  physical  factors."  If  on 
the  other  hand  the  evolutionist  be  a  pure  psychologist,  he 
will  start  with  consciousness  as  an  ultimate  fact,  he  will 
try  to  discover  the  general  laws  of  mind  and  mental 
processes  and  then  he  will  attempt  to  describe  "  in 
succession  the  various  stages  in  the  development  of  the 
individual  mind,  passing  from  the  more  simple  and 
primitive  to  the  more  developed  and  complex." ' 
Logically  the  task  before  the  mental  evolutionist  is  the 
same  as  that  before  the  biological  evolutionist.  He  must 
start  with  the  ultimate  fact  of  conscious  mind  :  he  must 
discover  the  permanent  laws  of  mental  processes— of  their 
variation,  reproduction,  and  heredity,  and  then  he  will  be 
able  with  some  accuracy  to  describe  the  successive  stages 
in  mental  evolution  ;  but  here,  just  as  much  as  in  the 
changes  of  the  inorganic  sphere,  and  as  in  the  vital  process 

1   Analytic  Psychology,  vol.  i.  p.  .4  J  Ibid.  p.  36. 


2i8  G.   E.  UNDERBILL  w 

of  the  organic  sphere,  the  actual  processes  involved  will 
ipso  facto  elude  his  understanding.  Mental  products  and 
the  laws  and  stages  of  their  production — these  constitute 
his  science.  The  real  process  is  beyond  him — the  process 
as  it  actually  goes  on  in  fact. 

VII.  RESULTS  OF  THE  INQUIRY 

§21.  Our  inquiry  need  not  be  further  pressed:  three 
points  at  least  should  now  be  plain.  The  first  is  that  the 
evolutionist  can  never  deal  with  origins.  Wherever  he 
begins  his  analysis — be  it  in  the  inorganic,  organic,  or 
mental  sphere — he  must  start  with  some  fact  of  experience 
and  assume  it  as  ultimate — at  any  rate  for  his  particular 
purpose.  The  second  is  that  all  evolutionists  alike 
assume  the  discovered  laws  of  development  to  be 
permanent  and  unchanging,  and  but  few  stop  to  ask, 
whence  comes  this  permanence  and  absence  of  change  ?  it 
is  a  real  question  and  raises  a  real  difficulty.  For  from 
another  point  of  view  these  laws  are  themselves  qualities 
of  the  very  things,  whose  evolution  it  is  the  object  of 
science  to  trace.  Gravity  is  just  as  much  a  quality  as  a 
law  of  masses  ;  reproductive  power  is  just  as  much  a 
quality  as  a  law  of  animals  ;  association  of  ideas  is  just 
as  much  a  quality  as  a  law  of  mind.  What  then,  we  ask 
in  vain,  is  the  differentia  whereby  such  permanent 
qualities  are  to  be  distinguished  from  qualities  more 
fleeting.  Why  should  there  be  supposed  to  be  an 
evolution  of  chemical  elements,  but  no  evolution  of 
gravity  ? 

Thirdly  and  lastly  in  all  scientific  discoveries  of  what- 
soever kind  the  human  mind  discovers  itself  and  its  own 
intelligible  relations  ;  the  laws  of  motion,  the  law  of 
gravitation,  the  orbits  of  the  planets,  the  atomic  weight  of 
the  chemical  elements — so  far  as  they  are  intelligible  to 
us  at  all — are  intelligible  because  the  mind  can  number 
and  measure  and  finds  its  own  numbers  and  measures  in 
them.  The  adaptation  of  organisms — that  adaptation 
which  constitutes  their  very  essence — is  intelligible  because 


iv  THE   LIMITS  OF  EVOLUTION  219 

our  mind  knows  what  it  means  by  adapting  means  to 
ends.  Still  more  obvious  is  it  that  in  the  Mental  Sciences 
our  own  mind  is  our  only  key  to  the  facts  and  laws  of 
other  minds.  Tavrov  vovf  ical  voijrov. 

§22.  The  doctrine  of  Evolution  then  is  a  doctrine 
of  limited  and  not  of  universal  application.  It  has  been 
most  successfully  applied  in  the  sphere  from  whence  it 
came — the  organic  kingdom.  In  its  wider  sense- 
perhaps  only  distinguishable  from  mere  change  or  be- 
coming by  implying  some  increase  in  complexity  of  form 

— it  is  bearing  good  fruit  as  a  working  hypothesis  in  the 
inorganic  kingdom.  When  applied  to  the  development 
of  conscious  and  social  phenomena,  it  is  very  hard  to 
distinguish  Evolution  from  what  our  forefathers  called 
history.  But  in  whatever  sphere  it  is  applied,  its  limita- 
tions are  equally  apparent.  It  must  have  a  matter  of 
some  sort  in  which  to  manifest  itself  and  its  manifestations 
are  conceived,  whether  rightly  or  wrongly,  to  take  place 
according  to  certain  laws.  And  by  all  evolutionists 
alike,  this  matter,  whether  materially  or  ideally  interpreted, 
and  these  laws  are  conceived  of  as  permanent  and 
unchanging — i.e.  as  not  themselves  subject  to  Evolution. 
In  a  word,  the  One  and  the  Many,  the  Permanent  and  the 
Changeable,  involve  problems  just  as  insoluble  to  us  as 
they  were  to  Parmenides  and  Plato,  and  \ve  have  not 
evolved  (nor  indeed  are  we  likely  to  evolve)  any  new 
mental  processes  whereby  to  solve  them.  Human  science 
conquers  new  kingdoms,  but  she  conquers  them  with  her 
old  weapons — mental  reconstruction  of  sensible  experience 
according  to  mental  principles.  Darwin's  discovery  of 
the  variability  of  species  is  no  exception  to  the  rule. 
The  mental  principle  which  he  used  is  that  which 
Aristotle  formulated  as  final  cause— nothing  more  or  less  : 
what  he  did  was  to  prove  that  it  held  good  in  a  sphere 
and  in  a  way  in  which  no  one  hitherto  had  thought  of 
applying  it.  This  old  conception,  thus  newly  applied, 
has  indeed  been  disguised  under  the  strange  but  now 
familiar  names  of  Evolution,  Adaptation,  Natural  Selection 

— probably    for   no  other   reason   than    Bacon's   old    con- 


220  G.  E.   UNDERBILL  iv 

damnation  of  the  misuse  of  final  causes  in  physical 
sciences — causa  finalis  lantum  abest  ut  prosit,  ut  etiam 
scientias  corrumpat.  In  the  minds  of  Bacon's  opponents 
final  cause  was  a  notio  male  terminata.  In  Darwin's 
mind  it  became  a  notio  bene  terminata  through  his  careful 
observations  and  experiments.  Numberless  passages  in 
the  Origin  of  Species  might  be  cited  ;  thus  referring 
to  Natural  Selection  and  his  favourite  canon  Natura  non 
facit  saltum,  he  writes,1  "  [Hence]  we  can  see  why  through- 
out nature  the  same  general  end  is  gained  by  an  almost 
infinite  diversity  of  means,  for  every  peculiarity  when 
once  acquired  is  long  inherited,  and  structures  already 
modified  in  many  ways  have  to  be  adapted  for  the  same 
general  purpose."  Long  ago  Aristotle 2  on  a  slender 
basis  of  facts  asserted  Zcmv  apa  TO  eveica  rov  eV  rot?  <£vcret 
7tfo/iez/04<?  KOI  ovaiv.  Two  thousand  years  later  Darwin 
proved  the  assertion  by  marshalling  the  facts. 

1   P.  646.  -   Pkys.  ii.  8.  6. 


ORIGIN    AND    VALIDITY    IX    ETHICS 
By  R.   R.    MARKTT 

I.    ENUNCIATION  OK  PROBLEM 

1.  The  vital   problem   of  modern   Ethics  is  how  to  reconcile  the  .-.tandpoim- 

of  Origin  and  Validity. 

2.  Meaning  of  these  terms  defined  and  illustrated. 

3.  The  problem  one  of  General   Philosophy  since   (a)   it   pertain.-,   not   only 

to  Ethics  but  e.g.  to  Religion  and  Art  ;  (6)  it  involves  the  difficulty 
about  the  relation  of  the  conscious  to  the  non-conscious  (instinct). 

II.   DETERMINATION  OK  MKI APHYSICAL  ATTITUDE 

4.  What  is  to  be  our  attitude  towards  our  subject  taken  simply  as  matter 

of  experience?  Metaphysics,  the  (would-be)  theory  of  experience  as  a 
whole,  must  be  experimental,  if  'experience  is  experiment';  whicii 
doctrine  of  the  psychologist,  however,  calls  itself  for  metaphysical 
endorsement. 

5.  In  '  presentness  of  experience  '  the  psychologist  provides  the  metaphysician 

with  a  standard  of  reality,  whereby  he  may  judge  all  discursive  thinking 
to  be  experimental  merely. 

6.  And   metaphysical   thinking  forms  no  exception   to  this   rule,   its   special 

danger  being  that  it  exceed  the  limits  of  valid  experimentation,  then- 
being  a  kind  of  barely  logical  conjecture  which  leads  to  nothing. 

7.  Our  policy  will   be  to  try  to  avoid  this  kind  of  thinking  ('  metalogic  "  , 

and  to  face  the  'facts'  of  Empirical  Psychology. 

III.   DELIMITATION  OK  SriiKKi.  OK  Eimcs 

S.  Another  preliminary  task  is  to  define  the  scope  of  Ethics  ,i  subject 
on  which  the  vaguest  views  prevail.  A  treble  limitation  must  suffice 
us  here. 

<).  (a)  Life  is  not  all  conscious  life,  and  Ethics  has  no  concern  with  instinct 
as  such. 

10.  (/')  Conscious  life  is  not  all   morality,  and   the  as]>ect  with   which    Ethic^ 

deals  presents  a  certain  'reference'  and  'quality'  in  combination,  citlu  i 
of  which  so  far  as  it  is  found  apart  from  the  other  does  not  come  wnhir. 
the  range  of  Ethics  proper. 

11.  (i )   Morality  as  a   product    is   but    partially  due  to   moral    theory,  whethci 

as    science    or    as    art,    since,    besides     instiix"     and     quasi -instinctive 


222  R.   R.   MARETT  v 

impulse,  there  is  constitutional  feeling  to  be  reckoned  with  before  bare 
idea  can  pass  into  achievement. 

IV.  GROUND-PLAN  OF  PROPOSED  SYNTHESIS 

12.  A  first  glance  at  the  facts  offers  hope  of  reconciling  Origin  and  Validity. 
Our  appreciations  of  right  and  wrong  manifestly  involve  some  acquaint- 
ance with  Origin  in  the  sense  of  the  history,  or  previous  record,  of  the 
virtues. 

ij.  Such  extreme  views  as  (a)  that  the  only  Origin  worth  considering  is 
'ultimate  origin,'  and  (b)  that  Validity  resides  in  '  things-as-they-arty 
are  due  to  metaphysical  prejudice  which  will  not  stand  criticism. 

14.  Hence  (a)  proposed  synthesis — an    intuitionism  tempered    by  historical 

criticism  ;  (b)  proposed  method — to  confute  the  irreconcilables  on  either 
side. 

V.  MERE  ORIGIN  AS  AN  ETHICAL  STANDPOINT 

15.  The  evolutionary  school  has  no  right  to  base  its  'rational  utilitarianism' 

on  the  fact  of  the  '  unconscious  utilitarianism  '  of  physiological  nature. 
The  latter  represents  a  mere  'is,'  whereas  the  moralist  has  to  explain 
and  justify  an  '  ought.' 

1 6.  This  is,  however,  not  the  transcendental   'ought'  of  the  apriorist,  but  a 

psychological  '  ought,'  within  which  the  empiricist  has  to  recognise 
diverse  moments  that  '  seem '  to  imply  determination  from  without  and 
determination  from  within  as  occurring  at  once  and  together. 

17.  Certain    evolutionists    indeed,    by    formally    distinguishing    between    the 

psychological  effects  of  '  natural '  and  '  conscious '  selection,  admit  the 
bare  fact  of  this  duality  in  unity.  It  remains  to  follow  up  the  idea  into 
the  concrete. 

1 8.  For  instance,  let  us  consider  the  phenomena  of  man's  history  as  a  domestic 

being. 

19.  These,    though    they    agree    in    being    psychical    phenomena,   display   a 

duality  of  intrinsic  character  which,  by  a  working  hypothesis,  we  will 
ascribe  to  a  divergence  between  the  '  aims '  of  natural  and  conscious 
selection. 

20.  It  may,  however,  be  contended  from  the  side  of  Origin  that  these  specific 

facts  on  the  whole  testify  to  the  predominance  of  the  instinctive 
moment  in  the  moral  consciousness. 

21.  But  now  consider  the  closely-related  history  of  the  idea  of  Purity.      Here 

we  seem  to  have  a  moral  principle  that  has  severed  its  connection  with 
instinct  and  persists  by  reason  of  a  validity  of  its  own.  To  call  it  a 
'by-product,'  with  the  evolutionist,  is  simply  to  confess  it  inexplicable 
from  that  point  of  view. 

22.  In  the  absence,   then,   of  any  explanation   from    the   side   of  Origin,  the 

balance  of  empirical  probability  is  in  favour  of  the  spontaneous 
origination  of  this  ideal  by  the  moral  consciousness. 

23.  A   glance    at    the    general    history    of   the   virtues   (as   classified    in    five 

'  natural '  groups)  confirms  the  view  that  the  duality  in  question  runs 
right  through  morality  as  a  product. 

24.  The  domestic  virtues  appear  on  the  whole  to  subserve  the  '  natural '  end  of 

race-preservation. 

25.  And  this  is  also  true  of  the  national  virtues. 

26.  On    the   other   hand,    the  personal  virtues   seem    rather    to    make    for   a 

'spiritual'  end.  namely  self-perfection. 

27.  As  is  even  more  palpably  the  case  with  the  transcendental  virtues. 


ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN    ETHICS     223 

28.    Whilst  the  international  virtues  show  the  two  moments  at  work  together. 

2q.  The  appearances,  then,  are  not  unambiguous,  much  less  do  they  un- 
ambiguously favour  a  metaphysical  naturalism,  the  ethical  implications 
of  which  can  easily  be  proved  to  be  a  tissue  of  inconsistencies. 

30.  On  the  other  hand,  suppose  the  votary  of  Origin  eschew  the  naturalistic 

metaphysic,  and  concede  a  provisional  validity  to  '  spiritual '  as  distin- 
guished from  '  natural '  motive  on  the  ground  that  the  one  no  less  than 
the  other  is  a  persistent  feature  of  historical  morality,  will  he  not 
proceed  from  history  to  introspection  in  search  of  a  moral  '  ought ' 
that  is  relatively  unambiguous  and  one  ? 

VI.  VALIDITY  AS  AN  ETHICAL  STANDPOINT 

31.  Introspection,  regarded  as  a  branch  of  Empirical  Psychology  complemen- 

tary in  scope  to  the  historical  or  comparative  branch,  shows  us  that 
there  is  immanent  in  the  consciousness  of  the  typical  moral  subject  of 
to-day  a  finally  decisive  power  of  selective  valuation  amongst  moral 
principles. 

32.  Further,  introspection  can   to  some  extent  explain  why  the  moral  will  is 

ultimately  governed  by  this  kind  of  'intuition,'  namely,  because  (<z) 
discursive  thinking,  as  contrasted  with  feeling,  to  which  intuition  is 
more  nearly  akin,  involves  distraction  of  attention  and  consequent 
enervation  of  will  ;  (b]  discursive  thinking  about  futurities,  as  distin- 
guished from  abstract  immediacies,  is  enervating  even  as  regards  the 
will  to  think  ;  (c)  discursive  thinking  about  feelings  is  apt  to  do  per- 
manent injury  to  the  power  of  feeling,  and  hence  to  that  of  willing  with 
confidence. 

33.  Now   the   authoritativeness   of  moral    intuition,    to  judge    by    its  psycho- 

logical appearance,  is  not  the  mere  '  fatality '  of  instinct. 

34.  Nor  is  it  the  external  compulsiveness  of  custom  and  law. 

35.  On  the  contrary  it  is  essentially  internal,  i.e.  self-imposed  ;  and  rational, 

i.e.  capable  of  furnishing  the  supreme  organising  principle  of  a  norma- 
tive Ethics  that  is  at  once  preceptive  and  explanatory. 

56.  As  to  the  finality  ot  such  a  form  for  Ethics  from  the  point  of  view  of 
General  Philosophy  and  of  Metaphysics,  it  would  seem  that  normative- 
ness  is  common  to  the  human  sciences,  and  that  there  is  at  any  rate 
much  to  be  said  in  favour  of  a  ideological  interpretation  of  ihe  universe. 

VII.   SUC.CKSTION.S   FOR  A  COMBINKI)   U.SK  OK  THK  Tu  O 
STANDPOINTS  IN   EMI-IKICAI.   ETHICS 

•57.  An  ultimate  authoritativeness  in  Ethics  being,  on  the  various  grounds 
alleged,  allowed  to  Validity,  what  scope  can  be  found  for  Origin  as  ;i 
supplementary  principle?  Now  so  fir  as  Origin  means  naturalism,  its 
service-,  can  be  dispensed  with  altogether. 

jS.  Hut  if  Origin  stand  for  the  comparative  study  of  the  relations  of  the 
'objective,'  i.e.  external,  factor  to  the  'subjective,'  i.t'.  internal  and 
self-authorising,  factor  in  moral  process,  it  has  an  important  function 
to  fulfil. 

59.  Whilst  Validity  is  from  first  to  last  the  attirmative  principle  in  Ethics, 
' 'rigin  is  the  critical.  The  'laws'  that  ihry  conjointly  establish  air 
ultimately  self  -  imposed  ordinances,  rather  th.in  observed  uniformities, 
simply  because  of  the  '  f.ict  '  that  moral  practicability,  \\heti'er  as 
sought  or  as  studied,  depends  in  the  hist  resort  on  ourselves  rather  than 
on  circumstances. 

40.  Thus  ihe  form  mo,!  fitting  for  Ethics  as  a  whole  would  seem  to  be  that 
of  a  critical  intuitionism.  -W.-v'/.v;  utt  ai^oli'ititr  •:  > Ttricndo  ! 


224  R-   R-   MARETT 


I.  ENUNCIATION  OF  PROBLEM 

§  i.  A  SYNTHESIS  of  the  methodological  principles  of 
Ethics  would  prove  very  welcome  to  the  philosopher.  For, 
regarded  philosophically,  Ethics  is  in  a  bad  way.  Hostile 
camps  divide  the  land.  Now  two  courses  are  open  to  the 
peace-maker.  He  may  break  up  the  disputed  territory  into 
lots.  Man's  interest  in  himself  as  a  moral  being  may  con- 
ceivably have  to  content  itself  in  the  future  with  a  chapter 
in  psychology  or  anthropology  here,  a  scrap-book  of  pensees 
there.  Or  the  peace-maker  may  induce  the  contending 
parties  to  compose  their  differences.  And  this,  we  may 
be  sure,  when  practicable,  is  the  simpler  and  more  grateful 
task.  At  all  events,  it  is  along  these  lines  that  one's 
natural  prejudice  bids  one  seek  for  a  solution. 

Meanwhile  it  is  all  in  favour  of  a  settlement  being  shortly 
reached  by  the  one  way  or  by  the  other,  that  the  matter 
and  cause  of  the  dispute  are  tolerably  manifest.  If  Ethics 
splits  into  fragments,  it  will  split  on  the  question  of  Origin 
versus  Validity.  Or,  on  the  other  hand,  if  Ethics  is  to 
maintain  its  integrity  as  Ethics,  Origin  and  Validity  must 
be  reconciled,  that  is,  room  must  be  found  for  both  prin- 
ciples of  explanation  to  operate  freely  within  a  single, 
well-marked,  centrally-governed,  self-supporting  province 
of  thought. 

§  2.  These  principlesare  doubtless  of  such  familiar  import 
as  scarcely  to  stand  in  need  of  preliminary  definition. 
Origin,  taken  in  an  ethical  connection,  represents  the 
standpoint  from  which  moral  judgments- — that  is, 
appreciations  of  the  morally  good  and  bad  as  applied 
witn  regulative  intent  to  human  character  and  conduct — 
are  explained  by  reference  to  the  previous  stages  of  a 
historical  development  imputed  to  them.  Validity  is  the 
standpoint  from  which  such  judgments  are  explained  by 
reference  to  their  present  worth  and  significance  to  the 
moral  subject — -to  the  person  or  persons  uttering  them. 

A  few  miscellaneous  examples  taken  from  various 
text-books,  ethical  and  otherwise  (the  authors  of  which 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     225 

may  go  bail  for  the  facts  alleged),  will  serve  to  illustrate 
the  general  bearing  and  force  of  the  antithesis  : — 

We  wear  clothes  to-day  from  a  sense  of  decency. 
Originally  they  furnished  our  ancestors  with  a  means  of 
sexual  attraction. 

For  us  monogamy  rests  on  a  theory  of  the  rights  of 
woman.  Originally  the  form  of  marriage  was  the 
immediate  outcome  of  the  numerical  proportions  of  the 
sexes  within  a  given  '  area  of  characterisation.' 

This  man  admires  his  own  class  for  its  intrinsic 
superiority  to  the  vulgar  in  point  of  manners.  The 
origin  of  his  prejudice  is  to  be  sought  in  the  racial  scorn 
of  a  conquering  people  for  its  serfs. 

That  man  holds  by  fasting  as  conducive  to  moral 
self-discipline.  In  its  origin  fasting  was  a  means  of 
producing  '  ecstatic  vision.' 

I  play  golf  as  a  relaxation.  Play  originally  constituted 
man's  apprenticeship  in  the  serious  arts  of  life. 

We  burn  Guy  Favvkes  for  fun.  Once  the  act  had 
political  significance.  In  the  background,  perhaps,  there 
lurks  a  rite  designed  to  reinvigorate  a  corn-spirit. 

I  think  it  morally  abominable  to  commit  homicide ; 
bad  taste  to  speak  evil  of  the  dead ;  disrespectful  to 
approach  my  sovereign  too  closely  ;  dirty  to  allow 
another  to  eat  off  my  unwashed  plate.  Once  these 
practices  were  shunned  from  fear  of  ghosts  or  of 
magical  infection. 

Now,  presuming  (as  I  do  on  the  strength  of  its  past 
and  present  tendency)  that  Ethics  cannot  afford  to  ignore 
either  of  these  standpoints  in  favour  of  the  other,  is 
there  any  way,  I  ask  myself,  whether  through  subordi- 
nation or  through  co-ordination,  of  reducing  them  to  a 
single  standpoint  —  of  freeing  the  ethical  'because'  of 
that  fundamental  ambiguity  which  threatens  the  very 
existence  of  Ethics  as  a  working  system  of  explanatory 
principles  ?  That,  in  outline,  is  the  problem  to  be 
attacked. 

§  3.  By  way  of  opening  the  campaign,  let  us  take  the 
auguries.  The  foregoing  illustrations  suggest  two 

O 


226  R.   R.   MARETT  v 

observations  which  may  serve  to  convey  a  hint  of  the 
kind  of  affair  before  us. 

(a)  The  first  is  that  the  difficulty  about  choosing 
between  the  standards  of  Origin  and  Validity  is  not  con- 
fined to  Ethics,  regarded  as  one  amongst  several  '  organised 
interests '  of  the  human  spirit.  Thus  some  of  our  cases 
seemed  to  relate  primarily  to  the  history  of  Religion  ; 
others  again  to  that  of  Art  on  its  recreative  side.  Hence 
we  must  be  prepared  to  have  to  cast  about  somewhat 
widely  for  a  mediating  view.  Our  object  must  be  to 
provide  a  form  for  our  theory  of  the  moral  life  that  will 
likewise  be  applicable  to  our  theory  of  the  '  higher  life '  as 
a  whole. 

(b}  The  second  is  that,  of  the  various  '  origins ' 
alleged,  some  are  palpably  more  original  than  others. 
Sometimes,  as  when  I  forget  Guy  Fawkes  the  Popish 
plotter  in  Guy  Fawkes  the  occasion  of  fireworks,  one 
conscious  motive  has  but  retired  in  favour  of  another. 
Sometimes  a  motive  will  have  altered  mainly  in  respect  to 
the  degree  of  clearness  with  which  the  subject  grasps  it. 
Thus  my  prejudice  against  the  serf-class — against  '  colour,' 
let  us  say — may  all  along  have  rested  on  dimly  rational 
grounds.  Sometimes,  however,  a  more  radical  form  of 
change  would  appear  to  have  occurred.  The  motive  of 
shame  that  bids  me  cover  my  nakedness  may  be  contrasted, 
not  with  another  motive  bidding  me  ingratiate  myself 
with  the  other  sex,  which  motive  may  or  may  not  have  a 
certain  weight  with  me  still,  but  with  an  instinct  or 
organic  trend,  implanted  in  my  body  by  natural  selection 
in  such  a  way  as  to  bring  about  the  result  contemplated 
by  the  last-mentioned  motive  independently  of  any  act  of 
will  on  my  part.  Now  this,  the  most  original  of  so-called 
origins,  will  presumably  constitute  the  real  point  (fappui 
of  the  more  uncompromising  champion  of  the  historical 
method  of  explanation.  His  Origin  par  excellence  will  be 
'  instinct.'  Thus  there  looms  ahead  the  problem  of  how 
to  correlate  the  '  spiritual '  and  subjective  with  the 
purely  '  natural '  and  external.  It  looks  as  if  the 
combatants  must  be  brought  to  parley  '  from  opposite 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     227 

sides  of  the  ditch.'  Here,  then,  is  further  reason  to 
suppose  that  the  argument  is  bound  to  transcend  the 
strictly  ethical  plane  ;  that,  in  fact,  however  specific  be 
the  application  it  is  intended  to  give  to  its  conclusions, 
these  cannot  be  established  without  the  aid  of — let  us  call 
it,  General  Philosophy. 

II.  DETERMINATION  OF  METAPHYSICAL  ATTITUDE1 

§  4.  General  Philosophy,  however,  hardly  amounts  to 
Metaphysics.  On  the  highest  and  most  characteristic 
plane  of  Metaphysics  we  shall  venture  but  for  a  moment. 
And  that  at  once.  For,  if  we  are  to  be  thorough,  we 
must  start  by  determining  our  general  attitude  towards 
our  subject  regarded  simply  as  matter  of  experience. 

Metaphysics,  as  it  is  commonly  defined,  is  the  theory 
of  experience  as  a  whole.  But  this  is  what  we  would 
have  it  be  rather  than  what  it  is.  Actually,  it  comprises 
all  thinking  of  which  it  is  the  guiding  interest  to  bring 
our  manifold  ideal  constructions  of  experience  into  the 
completest  attainable  accord,  establishing  such  accord 
on  grounds  that  shall  seem  sufficient,  even  if  they  do  not 
exclude  a  logical  possibility  of  dcubt. 

For,  if  '  experience  is  experiment,'  Metaphysics,  at  once 
because  it  helps  to  constitute,  and  because  it  contemplates, 
experience,  must  itself  be  experimental. 

But  is  experience  experiment  ?  "  Surely,"  the  plain 
man  will  say,  "  it  is  not  wholly  or  merely  so.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  ordinary  sense  experimental  about  a 
haunting  sense  of  pain.  Rather  it  would  seem  as  if  the 
statement  were  but  intended  as  a  simplification  for 
descriptive  purposes  of  our  perplexed  experiences.  'Is' 
must  here  mean  '  is  pre-eminently,  characteristically,  and 
on  the  whole.'  " 

1  Sections  II.  ami  III.,  containing  introductory  matter  \\hich  suffer.-,  from 
much  compression,  may  be  omitted  by  tin-  reader  who  is  impatient  to  embark  on 
the  main  theme,  so  loni;  as  he  is  prepared  to  allow  (,:  <  th.it  all  philosophy  must 
be  empirical  in  the  sen.-,e  that  it  must  relate  to  an  experience  capable  of  having 
such  actuality  as  we  have  experience  of  'personally'  ;  (/')  th.it  the  scope  of 
Kthics,  the  theory  of  moral  sjoocl,  is  n.":"',\er  than  that  of  the  theory  of  th?  troi  d 
m  life  as  a  whole. 


228  R    R.  MARETT  v 

Now  the  doctrine  comes  in  the  first  instance  from 
the  psychologists.  Certain  of  them  find  in  it  an  adequate, 
or  at  any  rate  a  convenient,  basis  for  the  particular 
'  construction '  which,  as  psychologists,  they  deem  true 
or  least  untrue.  The  construction  in  question  is  built 
up  somewhat  as  follows.  The  conscious  individual  in 
his  active  capacity — for  example,  as  when  he  thinks — is 
moved  by  interests.  These  sum  themselves  up  in  a 
master- interest,  his  desire  to  live  well.  This  master- 
interest,  however,  defies  all  his  efforts  to  yield  it 
immediate  full  satisfaction.  Thus  it  ever  harks  forward 
towards  an  indefinite  future.  Hence,  since  in  conscious 
experience  regarded  from  this  point  of  view  the  sense 
of  wanting  perpetually  both  outflanks  and  outweighs  the 
sense  of  having,  experience  is  fundamentally  a  trying, 
and  thinking  in  particular  a  thinking-onwards  rather  than 
a  thinking-out  or  thinking-to. 

But  is  this  point  of  view  finally  tenable  ?  Is  it,  not 
merely  good,  but  good  enough  ?  Can  we,  not  merely 
as  psychologists,  but  as  reasoners  in  search  of  synthesis, 
fairly  content  ourselves  with  it  ?  That  is  what  the 
metaphysician — or,  since  one  man  may  suffice  for  both 
characters,  the  psychologist  turned  metaphysician  —  has 
to  decide  as  best  he  can.  He  has  to  decide,  for  instance, 
whether,  in  the  foregoing  description,  the  stress  laid  on 
conation  and  the  conative  moment  in  thinking,  the 
comparative  indifference  shown  to  the  passive  or  merely 
feeling  side  of  our  nature,  the  assumption  that  our  diverse 
and  often  incompatible  interests  can  be  summated,  the 
refusal  to  recognise  the  existence  of  states  of  complete 
content,  the  identification  of  the  reaching-beyoncl-itself 
of  consciousness  with  a  rcaching-forward  in  time — 
whether  all  these  things  hold  good  and  must  hold  good, 
not  merely  for  the  purposes  of  psychology,  but  for  the 
purposes  of  the  most  comprehensive  thinking  possible 
for  us. 

I  hope,  then,  after  thus  openly  acknowledging  the 
prerogative  of  Metaphysics  as  a  final  court  of  rational 
appeal,  that  I  shall  not  be  misunderstood  if  I  proceed 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     229 

to  declare  that  this  psychological  account  of  the  essential 
nature  of  experience  is  likewise  to  me  metaphysically 
satisfactory,  in  the  sense  that  for  the  purposes  of  the 
most  comprehensive  thinking  it  seems  as  good  as  can 
be  got. 

§  5.  The  standard  of  psychological  reality  is  presentness 
or  actuality  of  experience.  "  But  '  presentness,'  "  says 
the  metaphysician,  "does  not — cannot — hit  the  mark. 
No  'what'  can  be  equivalent  to  'that.'"  — "  Its  inexpres- 
sibleness,  then,  being,  if  you  will,  presumed,  let  us  go  on 
to  express  it  as  best  we  can."  So  answers  the 
psychologist  ;  and  it  is  his  great  merit  that  he  has  had 
the  courage  to  set  out  on  this  task  apparently  foredoomed 
to  failure.  The  metaphysician,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
wont  to  tie  himself  up  into  such  knots  with  his  heaven- 
sent principle  of  contradiction,  that  he  cannot  get  '  fairly 
started '  at  all,  much  less  find  himself  in  a  position  to 
'  report  progress.'  Yet  this,  paradoxical  as  it  may  sound, 
is  just  what  the  psychologist  has  done.  Though  lacking 
a  visible  '  take-off,'  he  has  started,  he  has  got  on. 
Wherefore  I  am  the  more  prepared  to  follow  him. 

The  psychologist  has  showered  '  whats '  on  the 
inexpressible  '  that '  of  actual  experience,  and  has  found 
to  his  delight  that  some  of  them  have  the  power  to  stick. 
Ludicrously  inadequate  they  doubtless  are — if  you  start 
with  expecting  adequacy  of  our  thought  -  symbols. 
Consider  the  so-called  'positive'  attributes  that  the 
psychologist  has  ventured  to  ascribe  to  his  '  reality.' 
Presentness,  actuality,  warmth,  intimacy,  all-inclusivcness, 
the  me-now,  a  psychosis,  and  so  on  —  do  any  of  these 
anchors  take  firm  bottom  ?  Or  consider  the  so-called 
'negative'  attributes — the  'infinite'  judgments  which 
proclaim  their  subject  not  merely  this  or  that.  '  Not  in 
time,'  '  no  quality,  nor  mode,  nor  subject,  nor  object,  of 
experience,'  '  not  felt,  nor  thought,  nor  willed,'  '  not  past, 
nor  future,  nor  the  external  world,  nor  you,  nor  God,1 
'  not  one,  not  many,'  etc.,  etc. — how  hollow  and  meagre, 
beside  the  fact,  is  all  this  indirectness  !  "  Ikit  the 
absurdity,"  you  say,  "  of  trying  to  make  me  understand 


230  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

that  of  which  by  intuition  I  am  perfectly  aware  already  ! " 
Not  at  all.  The  psychologist,  if  he  has  somehow  made 
you  understand  what  he  is  driving  at,  has  performed  a 
great  feat.  He  has  compounded  intuitions  with  you — 
or,  let  us  say  (to  leave  '  you '  somewhat  arbitrarily  out 
of  account),  with  himself.  He  has  projected  the  intuition 
of  presentness  into  the  world  of  thought  as  an  intuition. 
He  has  found  a  universal  standpoint  in  the  fact  about 
which  he  is  more  certain  than  about  anything  else.  "  As 
sure  as  I  am  alive  and  here"  (what  matter  the  words  if 
they  but  be  '  to  that  effect ' !)  represents  his  ne  plus  ultra 
of  conviction. 

Which  standpoint,  I  maintain,  is  no  needle-point. 
Though  we  be  not  angels,  there  is  room  upon  it  for  us 
all — even  for  the  metaphysician.  The  practical  failure 
of  his  attempt  to  argue  himself  out  of  his  sense  of  present 
existence  ought  to  provide  him  with  an  inkling  of  where 
the  counterfoil  lies  to  the  '  appearance '  he  decries  but 
finds  it  so  hard  to  get  away  from.  Appearance  attaches 
to  experience  in  so  far  as  it  is  divided.  I  do  not  say 
'  divided  against  itself.'  Experience  does  not  always 
make  a  'poor  show.'  To  be  'in'  it  or  'of  it  is  enough 
to  constitute  show  as  such.  It  comes  to  this — that  'this 
presentness '  is  more  vital  to  the  existence  in  experience 
of  any  of  '  these  presents '  than  any  of  them  are  vital  to 
its  existence.  To  the  extent  to  which  the  intuition  of 
presentness  does — I  do  not  say  'must,'  but  '  does  '- 
prevail  over  all  discriminative  analysis  of  the  elements 
presented,  to  this  extent  is  the  '  absoluteness '  of  the 
former  exalted  above  the  '  relativity '  of  the  latter.  To 
put  it  thus  to  myself  is  formally  of  course  an  experiment. 
Yet,  if  ever  experimentation  reaches  the  limits,  not  of 
logical  possibility,  perhaps,  but  of  a  logically  valid 
possibility,  it  must  surely  be  at  the  point  at  which  the 
experiment  is  instantly  confronted  by  the  verification — 
when  presentness  leaps  up  from  the  suggestion  of 
presentness,  and  overtakes  itself. 

§  6.    Psychological  reality  has  been    cited  in  order  that 
it  may  bear  witness.      It  has  been  cited  because  it  seems 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     231 

to  afford  the  most  crucial  proof  that,  in  default  of  a 
perfect  proof,  is  to  be  obtained  of  the  experimental 
character  of  discursive  thinking  as  such.  Here  is  some- 
thing which  I  cannot  argue  myself  out  of,  nor  yet  prove 
myself  to  have.  Suppose  I  try  to  prove  that  presentness 
is.  I  must  put  the  proposition  to  myself  as  meaning 
something — e.g.  that,  presentness  removed,  there  would 
be  nothing.  But  how  can  I  possibly  be  present  to  verify 
the  prediction  ?  The  conditions  necessary  to  the  proof 
fall  outside  one  another,  not  in  any  merely  temporal 
sense,  but  really.  Hypothesis  and  verification  cannot 
conceivably  come  together  in  any  actual  experience  such 
as  we  know  in  ourselves.  Discursive  thinking,  then,  it 
would  seem,  is  confined  to  the  sphere  of  the  actually 
possible — nay  to  the  sphere  of  representability,  which,  in 
what  the  psychologist  cannot  but  regard  as  its  hither  aspect, 
is  but  the  possibility  of  a  possibility,  a  condition  conditioned 
by  something  itself  conditional,  namely  presentability. 

Thus  the  essence  of  all  mere  thinking — be  it  meta- 
physical, or  be  it  of  narrower  scope — is  to  be  conjectural, 
or,  as  I  would  prefer  to  say,  experimental.  For  in  a 
sense  there  are  no  definable  limits  to  conjecture.  There 
is  an  experimentation  unworthy  of  the  name  that  is 
merely  logical.  Left  to  itself  mere  thinking  cannot  draw 
the  rein  on  its  innate  discursiveness.  I  can  conjecture  in 
a  barely  logical  way  about  a  presentness  of  r.on-existence. 
With  a  certain  play  and  show  of  reasoning  I  can  follow 
the  notion  up  to  the  very  verge  of  suicide — intellectual  or 
actual.  But,  intuition  being  permitted  to  interfere,  at 
least  this  kind  of  guess-work  is  pronounced  futile,  and  in 
that  pronouncement  the  utmost  bounds  of  valid  conjecture 
are  set  up.  Conjecture  is  restricted  to  readabilities. 
In  the  conviction  that  they  must  be  readabilities  we 
are  at  the  point  where  conjecture  verges  on  certainty. 
On  the  other  hand,  what  the  readabilities  ma}-  or  may 
not  do  and  be  is  purely  problematic.  Precarious  inference 
following  in  the  wake  of  a  capricious  memory  has  to  decide 
as  best  it  can.  Framework  and  filling  of  our  experience 
— the  things  that  must  be,  can  be,  have  been,  will  be, 


232  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

ought  to  be — all  alike  are  doomed  to  a  relative  subsistence 
which  we  can  sufficiently  know  to  be  such  by  the  per- 
petual contrast  it  affords  to  the  ever-presentness  that  is. 

§  7.  The  foregoing  considerations  will  not  have  been  out 
of  place  in  such  an  essay  as  this  if  they  in  any  way  serve  to 
point  out  to  the  ethical  student  in  search  of  synthetic  prin- 
ciples that  the  true  field  for  his  energies  lies,  not  in  the  no- 
man's-land  of  dogmatic  '  Metalogic,' l  but  in  the  workaday 
world  of  Empirical  Psychology.  It  is  an  essential  part  of 
the  experimentalist  theory  that  in  philosophic  inquiry  the 
preliminary  attitude  makes  all  the  difference.  It  is  not 
intended  to  oppose  the  free  assumption  of  an  intellectual 
attitude  to  a  no  less  free  submission  to  the  teachings  of 
fact.  It  were  a  bastard  '  Pragmatism '  that  proclaimed 
licence  as  the  final  authoriser  of  law.  The  true  Pragmatism 
asserts  no  more  than  that  in  science  nothing  can  be 
'  done '  unless  the  prior  resolve  be  there  to  face  the  facts 
fairly.  It  but  reaffirms  the  old  saying  that  '  none  are  so 
blind  as  those  who  will  not  see.'  The  point  of  the  remark 
lies  in  its  application  to  the  case  of  the  '  metalogician.' 
When  a  man's  presupposition  is  that  he  has  no  call  to 
face  the  facts  because  forsooth  they  are  '  mere  facts '  ;  and 
when  further  he  maintains  that  this  is  no  presupposition, 
because  he  is  a  metaphysician,  and  Metaphysics  can  '  do 
without  presuppositions,'  i.e.,  by  beginning  nowhere  in 
particular  can  end  up  everywhere  at  once  ;  then  it  is  time 
to  retort  on  him  with  a  reminder  which,  were  it  not  so 
necessary,  might  sound  a  truism. 

Our  concern,  then,  shall  be,  submitting  ourselves  to 
that  attitude  of  '  scientific '  inquiry  so  foolishly  maligned 
by  some,  to  confront  the  never-ending  task  of  correlating 
the  relativities — the  apparent  readabilities — of  human 
experience.  As  the  data  will  be  experimental,  so  must 
be  the  results  ;  the  stream  cannot  rise  above  its  source. 
From  Empirical  Psychology  we  shall  gratefully  accept  the 
'  personal '  or  '  anthropocentric '  standpoint,  which,  even  in 
order  to  discount  its  own  bias,  our  thought,  it  would  seem, 
is  in  nature  bound  to  adopt.  And,  as  regards  Metaphysics, 

1   The  word  is  framed  on  the  analogy  of  '  metugeometry,'  '  metapolitical,'  etc. 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     233 

though  we  have  already  had  recourse  to  its  aid  so  as  the 
more  circumspectly  to  choose  our  path,  we  had  better 
resolve  that  for  the  rest  its  place  shall  be  on  the  further 
side  of  the  sciences.  Though  it  may  easily  be  less,  it 
cannot,  so  we  have  judged,  be  more  than  a  final  critical 
survey  of  the  organised  facts  of  experience  as  if  a  concrete 
whole,  with  the  object  of  guaranteeing  us  such  intellectual 
impartiality  and  breadth  of  view  as  may  be  possible  in 
our  necessarily  adventurous  attitude  towards  life  in 
general.  Hence,  since  we  cannot  in  what  follows  hope  to 
defend  our  conclusions  (save  in  so  far  as  may  by  anti- 
cipation have  been  done)  against  criticisms  applying  to 
the  general  standpoint  and  broader  principles  of  the 
psychology  they  rest  on,  we  had  best  at  once  renounce 
all  claim  to  metaphysical  exhaustiveness,  and  be  content  to 
regard  our  experiment,  in  virtue  of  its  wide  yet  inter- 
mediary scope,  as  simply  an  essay  in  General  Philosophy. 

III.  DELIMITATION  OF  SPHERE  OF  ETHICS 

§  8.  Having  trenched  on  Metaphysics  just  in  so  far  as 
seemed  necessary  in  order  to  define  our  general  attitude 
towards  the  problem  in  hand,  let  us  now  proceed  to  get 
within  somewhat  closer  range  of  its  specific  matter.  But 
we  have  not  yet  done  with  preliminaries. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  instances  taken  at 
random  to  illustrate  the  antithesis  between  Origin  and 
Validity  suggested  of  themselves  two  things.  The  first 
was  that  Ethics  is  one  amongst  several  '  organised  interests  ' 
of  the  human  spirit.  The  other  was  that  altogether  outside 
the  sphere  of  the  interests  that  move  the  will,  yet  at  every 
point  conterminous  with  it,  lies  the  mysterious  domain  of 
instinct.  It  would,  therefore,  seem  advisable  for  us  to  arm 
ourselves  at  the  outset  with  some  notion  of  the  limits — I 
might  even  say  'the  limitations' — of  Ethics  proper. 

There  is  a  confused  impression  prevalent  that,  because 
all  willed  conduct  has  in  some  degree  an  ethical  aspect, 
therefore  Ethics  is  the  theory  of  human  practice  in  general. 
Nay,  now  that  a  clever,  though  unscrupulous,  trick  of 


234  R-  R.   MARETT  v 

naming  has  enabled  '  the  unconscious '  to  pretend  to  so 
many  of  the  attributes  of  spirit,  it  is  hard  to  say  where,  if 
anywhere,  the  line  round  Ethics  would  be  drawn  by  some. 
On  the  other  hand,  seeing  that  divide  et  impera  is  the 
watchword  of  advancing  science,  it  is  hardly  too  much 
to  say  that  the  crying  need  of  Ethics  is  for  narrow  limits, 
and  the  narrower  the  better.  Indeed,  if  a  competent 
psychologist,  realising  that  there  are  almost  numberless 
ways  in  which  a  man  may  bring  himself  to  perform  the 
act  he  believes  to  be  socially  salutary,  were  carefully  to 
characterise  the  feeling  or  thought  that  exerts  the  decisive 
influence  in  each  case,  I  believe  that  a  score  of  varieties 
would  spring  into  existence  where  but  one  form  of  moral 
prompting  is  recognised  to-day.  And  I  believe  that,  of 
these  varieties,  four-fifths  might  be  eliminated  as  non-moral 
without  prejudice  to  Ethics  as  a  theory  of  somewhat 
comprehensive  sweep. 

Meanwhile,  in  an  essay  of  the  present  kind,  only  the 
broadest  distinctions,  and  those  most  firmly  founded  on 
common  consent,  can  be  noticed.  It  will,  in  fact,  suffice 
to  place  a  treble  limitation  on  the  scope  of  Ethics.  Let  us, 
then,  briefly  remind  ourselves:  (a)  that  life  is  not  all  conscious 
life  ;  (b}  that  conscious  life  is  not  all  morality  ;  and  (c}  that 
morality  as  a  product  is  but  partially  due  to  moral  theory, 
whether  organised  as  science  or  as  art. 

§  9.  (a)  From  a  narrowly  practical  point  of  view  there 
may  be  little  use  in  dwelling  on  the  suspicion  of  agencies  at 
work  in  some  indefinite  '  outside,'  whence  they  are  some- 
how able  to  control  the  phases  of  our  spiritual  life. 
Nevertheless,  the  suspicion  is  too  well  grounded  on 
'  appearance '  to  be  ignored  at  the  scientific  level  of 
thought.  The  question  of  our  '  ideal '  self-sufficiency  and 
freedom,  if  not  left  to  settle  itself,  must  at  least  be  raised 
in  such  a  way  as  not  to  prejudice  an  open-minded 
recognition  of  the  '  facts.'  And,  psychologically,  the 
facts  are  these,  that  a  sense  of  freedom  coexists  with  a  no 
less  lively  sense  of  constraint.  Now,  as,  I  hope,  the  sub- 
sequent argument  will  tend  to  show,  it  is  of  vital  importance 
for  man  that  he  should  allow  himself  to  lean  chiefly  on 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     235 

his  sense  of  freedom.  Even  on  deterministic  principles 
fatalism  might  reasonably  be  denounced  as  fatal  policy. 
There  may,  then,  be  good  psychological  reason  why  at 
the  moment  of  action,  nay  whenever  it  is  action  that 
is  directly  contemplated,  a  man  should  try  to  forget 
that  his  existence  is  hung  somewhere  between  the 
opposite  poles  of  blind  instinct  and  autonomous  rationality. 
When,  however,  it  is  simply  a  question  of  the  '  facts,'  to 
hail  ourselves  as  the  absolute  masters  of  our  fate  is  not 
even  a  '  noble  '  lie. 

§  10.  (/;)  Next  as  regards  the  ratio  borne  by  morality 
to  conscious  life  as  a  whole.  Even  if  we  be  ready  to  say, 
with  Matthew  Arnold,  that  morality  constitutes  "  three- 
fourths  of  life,"  at  least  we  are  admitting  it  to  be  less  than 
all.  I  would  not  deny  that  in  the  scheme  of  the 
'  organised  interests '  a  place  might  be  assigned  to,  and 
might  even  in  some  measure  be  occupied  by,  a  supreme 
science  and  art  of  life — call  we  them  severally  Philosophy 
and  Religion,  or  what  we  will.  It  can,  however,  but  plunge 
us  in  methodological  chaos  to  identify  such  architectonic 
and  all-embracing  theories  of  man's  function  in  the 
universe  with  the  science  and  art  of  Ethics. 

The  determinate  subject-matter  of  Ethics,  as  those  who 
have  actually  worked  at  its  problems  would  seem  generally 
prepared  to  admit,  is  the  conduct  of  life  just  in  so  far  as 
it  is  subject  to  the  influence  of  a  particular  kind  of  praise 
or  blame.  Whether  administered  by  self  or  others,  it  is 
usually  regarded  as  belonging  to  a  single  kind.  And  the 
characters  by  which  this  kind  may  be  recognised  are  com- 
monly held  to  be  two,  namely  a  reference  and  a  quality, 
which  taken  strictly  together  suffice  to  constitute  it  speci- 
fically unique.  So  far  it  is  comparatively  plain  sailing.  The 
difficulty  begins  when  this  reference  and  this  quality  have 
to  be  defined.  Both  prove  singularly  elusive  notions.  1  lence 
the  moralist  as  a  rule  is  driven  to  indirect  methods  of  de- 
scription. He  tries  to  bring  out  the  nature  of  the  differen- 
tial characters  of  the  moral  judgment  by  contrasting  them 
with  those  of  certain  allied  kinds  of  judgment.  But  thus 
to  transcend  the  limits  of  Ethics  is  not  to  widen  them. 


236  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

For  example,  let  us  suppose  sociality  to  be  the 
distinctive  object  of  ethical  reference,  and  purity  or 
disinterestedness  of  motive  to  be  the  specific  mark  of 
ethical  quality.  How  is  the  moralist  to  invest  these 
terms  with  meaning?  Sociality  is  vague  enough.  And 
as  to  purity  or  disinterestedness,  how  on  earth  is  he  to 
convey  an  impression  of  them  to  a  mind  that  does  not 
meet  him  half-way?  Thus  a  strong  temptation  besets 
him  to  '  stand  outside '  his  subject.  To  his  indistinct 
analysis  of  the  moral  judgment  he  can  at  least  oppose 
some  counter-analysis,  say,  of  our  appreciations  of  beauty 
and  truth  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  our  prudential 
valuations — the  calculations  of  '  enlightened  selfishness  '- 
on  the  other.  The  former  show  purity  without  the  social 
reference,  the  latter  has  the  social  reference  but  lacks 
purity.  Morality  consists  in  the  combination  of  the  two. 
"  And  now,"  says  the  moralist,  "  you  have  an  inkling  of 
what  I  am  driving  at." 

Subsidiary  studies  of  this  sort,  however,  but  betoken  a 
certain  inevitable  multiplication  of  interests,  due  to  our 
natural  tendency  when  seeking  for  side-lights  to  follow  out 
each  abstract  resemblance  overfar.  They  cannot  be  held 
to  enlarge  the  sphere  of  Ethics  proper.  Doubtless  such 
methodological  restrictions  are  somewhat  tiresome  to 
observe.  Tiresome  or  not,  however,  they  are  the  prime 
conditions  of  scientific  continence  and  sane  activity.  It 
is  to  save  time  and  labour,  and  not  for  the  simple  pleasure 
of  framing  empty  cadres,  that  science  adopts  the  watch- 
word divide,  et  inipcra. 

Nay,  it  is  precisely  because  it  has  hesitated  to  impose 
any  strict  delimitative  rule  upon  itself  that  ethical  science 
is  still  so  backward.  Ethics  till  of  late  has  been  merged 
in  General  Philosophy  to  the  prejudice  of  both.  Its 
ultimate  presuppositions  have  received  almost  exclusive 
attention.  And  the  basis  of  fact,  apart  from  which,  as  I 
believe  and  have  tried  to  show,  the  attempt  to  set  up 
presuppositions  is  the  merest  waste  of  time,  has  for  the 
most  part  been  supplied  by  prejudice,  by  imagination, 
and  by  the  kind  of  uncritical  history  that  embodies  both 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     237 

these  sources  of  error  in  their  most  insidious  form. 
Ethical  science,  then,  as  one  amongst  many  sciences 
(sundry  of  which,  indeed,  are  likewise  '  moral,'  but  only  in 
the  sense  in  which  Mill  spoke  of  the  '  moral  sciences '), 
must  confine  itself  to  its  special  task,  if  it  is  to  throw 
light  on  what  is  but  an  aspect,  though  a  highly  important 
aspect,  of  the  problem — what  are  the  conditions  of  the 
best  life  possible  for  man. 

§  i  i.  (V)  And  now  to  complete  our  account  of  the  limita- 
tions of  moral  philosophy.  It  is  surely  obvious  that,  in 
neither  of  its  complementary  forms,  neither  as  science 
pronouncing  indicatives  nor  as  art  issuing  imperatives,  is 
theory  equivalent  to  practice,  or  moral  theory  to  moral 
practice.  That  our  one  hope  lies  in  trying  to  think 
rationally  I  do  indeed  believe.  But  a  life  that  was  all 
rationality — a  rationality,  so  to  speak,  that  'did  itself '- 
were  a  condition  of  existence  which  even  the  '  metalogician  ' 
finds  it  difficult  to  conceive,  and  which  at  any  rate 
he  would  scarcely  regard  as  possible  '  for  us.' 

I  am  not  simply  recurring  to  the  '  fact '  of  instinct— 
of  forces  that  impinge  on  the  moral  nature  '  from  without.' 
There  are  other  forces  in  the  background  of  consciousness 
that,  if  not  wholly  blind,  as  the  instincts,  are  at  least 
purblind.  Constantly  we  hear  the  voice  of  reason 
without  being  able  to  obey,  and,  like  Goethe's  FiscJier, 
'  half  sink  and  half  are  drawn  '  from  the  living  atmo- 
sphere of  active  consciousness  into  the  dim  choking 
depths  of  some  half-physical  passion.  No  doubt  even 
at  these  depths  there  proceeds  a  conscious  life  of  a  kind. 
But  the  laws  that  govern  it  are  such  as  to  be  hardly 
comparable  with  those  that  hold  good  at  the  higher  level. 
Interest,  purpose,  selectiveness,  will  — these  terms  no 
longer  apply  save  as  psycho-physical  metaphors. 

Nay,  not  to  dwell  exclusively  on  the  obscurer  phases 
of  'organic'  consciousness,  let  us  consider  for  a  moment 
the  opposition  between  reason  and  feeling  taken  in  their 
broadest  sense.  The  subject  is  clearly  one  that  will 
intimately  concern  us  later,  seeing  that  Origin  and 
Validity  are  to  one  another  something  as  a  judgment 


238  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

based  on  history  to  a  judgment  based  on  impulse.  Let 
us  note  our  own  inevitable  bias  in  approaching  such  a 
problem  as  the  one  before  us.  There  is  at  least  a  half- 
truth  at  the  back  of  the  view  that  a  man  is  born  either 
a  Platonist  or  an  Aristotelian,  a  Stoic  or  an  Epicurean, 
an  intuitionist  or  a  utilitarian,  an  idealist  or  a 
materialist.  We  are  spiritually- minded  or  worldly- 
minded,  believers  or  sceptics,  romanticists  or  realists, 
and  so  forth,  primarily  at  least  in  virtue  of  a  certain 
fundamental  endowment  of  massive  sentiment.  The 
ceaseless  ideas  glance  to  and  fro  ;  but  they  have  rarely 
force  enough  to  affect  the  centre  of  temperamental  gravity. 
On  the  side  of  thought  advance  by  give  and  take  is  rela- 
tively easy.  But  constitutional  prejudice,  unlike  thought, 
recognises  absolute  differences.  Indeed,  save  in  the 
case  of  the  rarer  spirits,  reflection  in  regard  to  the 
broader  issues  of  life  has  scarcely  a  chance  of  making 
itself  felt  save  indirectly  through  the  medium  of  what 
may  without  prejudice  be  described  as  the  '  social  con- 
sciousness.' The  expert  changes  his  mind  for  better 
or  worse.  His  generation,  or  the  next,  half-consciously 
accepts  the  new  faith.  And  last  of  all,  perhaps,  such 
wholly  subconscious  agencies  as  imitation  and  early  train- 
ing succeed  in  the  course  of  centuries  in  giving  a  fresh 
turn  to  the  national  or  racial  '  trend.' 

Morality,  in  short,  implies  the  co-operation  of  disparate 
and  even  discrepant  factors,  standing  as  it  does  to  moral 
philosophy  as  achievement  to  bare  idea.  Even  though 
we  suppose,  with  the  logical  optimist,  that  the  conditions  of 
such  achievement  are  expressible  in  ideal  form, and  that  they 
must  be  so  expressed  ere  perfect  achievement  is  possible, 
it  is  none  the  less  a  '  fact '  of  our  distracted  workaday 
experience  that  it  is  one  thing  to  yield  full  intellectual 
assent  to  some  counsel  of  perfection,  and  quite  another 
to  succeed  in  living  up  thereto. 


ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     239 


IV.  GROUND-PLAN  OF  PROPOSED  SYNTHESIS 

§12.  And  now  let  us  close  with  our  task.  We  have  to 
reconcile  as  best  we  can  the  standpoints  of  Origin  and 
Validity  regarded  as  presumably  cognate  principles  of  ethical 
explanation.  Perhaps,  then,  after  all  a  certain  measure 
of  success  awaits  us.  A  first  glance  would  seem  to  show 
that  these  two  points  of  view  have  far  more  in  common 
than  the  uncompromising  attitude  ol  their  respective 
partisans  would  ever  lead  us  to  suspect. 

We  have  just  seen  that  Origin  and  Validity,  though 
standing  primarily  for  purely  theoretical  points  of  view, 
present  an  antithesis  of  which  the  force  and  sharpness 
is  largely  due  to  an  underlying  opposition  between  two  of 
the  deepest-lying  elements  of  our  nature.  Origin  is  prim- 
arily a  concern  of  thought,  Validity  a  matter  of  feeling. 
And  thought  is  not  readily  brought  to  act  on  feeling, 
nor  feeling  persuaded  to  accommodate  itself  to  thought. 
Smith's  ancestry  is  at  the  mercy  of  the  dreary 
lucubrations  of  the  Heralds'  Office.  His  present  worth, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  as  he  and  his  neighbours  feel  about 
it,  and  (up  to  a  certain  point,  at  least)  is  independent  of 
disclosures  on  the  part  of  Burke  or  Debrett. 

But  we  must  not  press  this  simile.  To  inquire  into 
moral  origins  is  no  piece  of  gratuitous  snobbery  to  be 
resented  in  the  interest  of  the  honest  convictions  of  the 
hour.  In  this  connection  we  must  be  respecters  of 
descent.  In  the  case  of  our  moral  habits  and  ideas 
descent  affords  a  most  important  criterion  of  re- 
spectability, though  taken  by  itself  the  criterion  is 
inadequate. 

Moral  principles  are  no  isolated  atoms.  Rather  they 
may  be  likened  (for  our  present  purpose,  at  any  rate)  to 
the  functions  of  an  evolving  organism.  The  higher  the 
organism,  the  more  completely  will  a  hierarchy  of 
co-operating  factors  have  been  established.  And  in  such 
a  hierarchy  authority  will  tend  to  be  bestowed  on  tried 
service.  For  the  latter  offers  a  promise  of  further  service 


240  R.  R.   MARETT  v 

to  come,   which,   if  occasionally    disappointing,   is    never- 
theless the  surest  amongst  available  means  of  forecast. 

In  the  case  of  the  virtues,  then,  their  previous  record, 
so  to  speak,  as  distributed  over  the  whole  series  of  the 
affiliated  forms  they  have  assumed  in  the  course  of  their 
history,  may  be  accepted  as  a  guarantee,  good  as  far  as 
it  goes,  of  a  future  career  of  usefulness.  Changes  in 
function  or  even  structure  may  have  affected  the  family 
identity  to  a  considerable  extent.  Still,  a  tendency  of 
a  more  or  less  marked  kind  is  likely  in  every  instance 
to  be  discernible.  And  on  this  it  ought  to  be  possible 
to  found  some  conditional  anticipation  of  events. 

If,  therefore,  we  understand  by  Origin,  not  some 
hypothetical  first  -  beginning,  but  total  back  -  history  or 
previous  record,  surely  it  is  plain  common -sense  that 
considerations  of  Origin  must  have  some  weight  in  our 
appreciations  of  right  and  wrong.  And  since  it  is 
equally  obvious  that  thought  unsupported  by  feeling  is 
powerless  to  found  a  habit  of  will,  here,  then,  are  manifest 
indications  of  concurrence  on  which  to  base  our  recon- 
ciliation of  these  standpoints. 

§  1 3.  Let  us  next  for  a  moment  take  stock  of  the 
misconstructions  to  which  either  principle  is  subject  at 
the  hands  of  its  extremer  partisans.  There  is  clearly 
critical  work  for  us  ahead.  Indeed,  the  outlook  portends 
that,  could  prejudice,  presumably  of  a  metaphysical  kind, 
be  put  at  arm's  length,  a  compromise  between  the  two 
standpoints  would  quickly  settle  itself,  to  the  infinite  gain 
of  Ethics  as  a  specific  branch  of  inquiry. 

(a)  The  uncompromising  champion  of  Origin  is  all 
for  '  ultimate  origins  ' — whatever  those  may  be.  He  is 
probably  at  heart  a  materialist.  And  it  must  be  allowed 
that  contemporary  evolutionism  is  only  too  ready  to  play 
into  his  hands.  He  is  one  of  those  whose  perverted 
taste  for  the  transcendental  leads  them  to  confine  their 
interest  almost  wholly  to  what  may  be  nicknamed  '  the 
science  of  prehistorics.'  This  constitutes  a  region  of 
inquiry  wherein  the  imagination  can  roam  at  its  own 
sweet  will,  untrammelled  by  books  of  reference  or  other 


ORIGIN  AND  VALIDITY  IN   ETHICS     241 

base  mechanical  apparatus.  Such  a  person  has  a  '  short 
way'  with  the  upholder  of  Validity.  If  his  mythical 
protantJiropus  is  credited  with  a  nasty  habit  of  avoiding 
cold  water,  then  baths  are  a  worthless  convention,  and 
homo  sapiens  is  a  fool  for  his  lixiviatory  pains. 

Now  our  general  policy  towards  such  a  person  will 
plainly  be  to  declare  that  he  has  not  the  smallest  right  to 
speak  in  the  name  of  the  Comparative  Method  ;  that 
Origin  means  history  ;  and  that  the  history  of  morals 
means  the  description,  anthropological  and  psychological, 
of  the  relations  which  a  certain  group  of  interacting 
spiritual,  quasi  -  physical,  and  (if  we  find  that  it  pays 
ethically  to  go  so  far  back)  even  physical  forces  have 
displayed  during  such  time  as  the  process  in  question 
has  actually  lain  open  to  what  may  be  termed  in  the 
broadest  sense  '  historical '  observation. 

(b)  The  no  less  uncompromising  champion  of  Validity 
may  be  portrayed  in  a  sentence.  He  is  probably  an 
idealist  ;  but,  for  all  that  his  metaphysical  prepossessions 
ought  to  lead  him  to  distinguish  between  '  present '  and 
'  ideal '  worth,  he  has  nevertheless  conceived  a  violent 
prejudice  in  favour  of  Things-as-they-are. 

With  him  we  must  gently  reason  thus.  "  Are  not 
moral  intuitions  good  in  the  good  man,  but,  in  the  case  at 
least  of  the  impenitently  bad  man,  are  they  not  bad  ? 
Granted,  if  you  will,  that  our  intuitions  are  bound  to 
outrun  any  power  we  may  have  of  testing  and  verifying 
their  effects.  But  what  of  our  generation  ?  Suppose  that 
you  who  are  good  and  I  who  am  bad  have  stuck  to  our 
intuitions  on  the  whole  through  life  for  better  and  worse 
respectively,  will  the  object-lesson  we  afford  be  wholly  lost 
on  society  ?  Does  society  frame  its  moral  standard  by 
blindly  compounding  a  mass  of  intuitions?  Surely  the  very 
intermingling  of  moral  natures  must,  as  it  were,  generate 
thought.  Whatever  its  members  as  individuals  may  do, 
society  at  least  is  sure  to  display  sonic  approach  to 
'  intelligence  without  passion  ' — some  capacity  for  impar- 
tially assigning  effects  to  their  apparent  causes.  But  here 
we  have  a  kind  of  moral  philosophy  in  the  making  ;  and 


242  R.  R.   MARETT  v 

its  compiler,  society,  by  no  means  deaf  to  historical  con- 
siderations. Clearly,  then,  it  is  our  duty  as  moralists  to 
recognise  the  existence  of  this  Ethics  of  common 
sense.  Nay  more,  it  is  our  one  and  sufficient  duty,  by 
contributing  method  in  the  shape  of  a  wider  inductive 
survey  and  closer  reasoning,  to  make  it  into  an  Ethics  that 
truly  deserves  the  name." 

§14.  Now  in  what  direction  do  these  inchoative  con- 
clusions and  criticisms  point  ?  Will  they  not  serve  to 
give  us  an  inkling  both  of  what  sort  of  synthesis  we  are 
likely  to  achieve,  and  of  how  we  must  proceed  so  as  to 
achieve  it  ? 

(a)  Firstly,  then,  as  regards  the  sort  of  synthesis,  or 
compromise,  in  prospect.  Our  recent  conclusions  are 
suggestive  in  the  following  way.  Origin,  we  decided,  was 
history,  or  performance  up  to  date.  Validity,  on  the 
other  hand,  seemed  to  stand  for  a  more  or  less  intuitive 
perception  of  the  worth  of  certain  moral  principles  '  in 
themselves '  ;  which  perception,  however,  though  immedi- 
ately it  tended  to  express  itself  as  a  feeling  or  sentiment, 
yet  might  be  regarded  as  to  some  extent  embodying  the 
results  of  a  previous  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  the 
moral  experiments  of  mankind.  At  the  same  time  we 
were  made  aware  of  the  extreme  indirectness  of  the 
process  whereby  this  knowledge  came  to  exert  an  influ- 
ence on  the  conduct  of  the  individual.  It  looked  as  if 
his  wisest  policy  on  the  whole  was  to  rest — provisionally, 
as  it  were — on  his  intuitions.  But  we  may  be  sure  that, 
if  the  facts  of  life,  subjective  and  objective  taken  together, 
show  it  to  be,  and  to  have  ever  been,  his  wisest  policy  to 
put  the  logic  of  feeling  before  the  logic  of  history,  the 
science  which  aims  at  rationalising  morality  will  have  to 
pronounce  the  policy  and  the  logic  that  guides  it  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  term  reasonable.  No  doubt,  as  we 
saw,  the  social  consciousness  is  in  a  manner  capable  on 
its  own  account  of  elucidating  the  conditions  of  moral 
conduct.  Nay  more,  it  seemed  to  do  this  in  so  impersonal 
and  objective  a  way  as  hardly,  one  might  suppose,  to 
include  amongst  these  the  condition  involved  in  this  need 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     243 

and  inclination  on  the  part  of  the  individual  moral  agent 
to  trust  to  his  intuitions.  The  social  consciousness,  how- 
ever, is  something  that  exists  between  members  of  society 
who  before  they  are  anything  else  are  '  persons.'  Hence 
it  cannot,  in  virtue  of  its  own  impersonality,  undertake  to 
ignore  a  condition  that  applies,  if  not  collectively,  yet 
distributively  and  individually,  to  those  socially-minded 
persons  for  whom  it  legislates,  namely  the  need  and  in- 
clination felt  by  every  moral  subject  to  interpret  the  moral 
life  from  within  itself  rather  than  by  reference  to  its 
circumstances.  All  of  which  would  seem  to  hold  good 
ethically,  whether  as  metaphysicians  we  choose  to  call 
this  tendency  '  provisional '  in  view  of  some  anticipated 
apotheosis  of  the  mere  understanding,  or  prefer  to  regard 
the  priority  of  the  intuitive  to  the  discursive  reason  as 
from  every  point  of  view  final  for  the  human  spirit. 

Thus  a  first  glance  would  seem  to  indicate  that  an 
intuitionism,  tempered  by  critical  reflection,  yet  character- 
istically and  predominantly  an  intuitionism,  is  the  Ethics 
natural  and  proper  to  man.  So  much  for  the  claims  of 
Validity.  On  the  other  hand,  the  expert  investigator  of 
moral  Origins  would  likewise  seem  to  have  plenty  to  do. 
His  function  is  to  be  editor-in-chief  of  that  '  critique  of 
moral  confidence,'  apart  from  which  such  confidence  is 
indistinguishable  from  mere  rashness.  The  moral  subject 
does  not  walk  by  faith  because  faith  is  blind,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  because,  purblind  as  it  is,  it  is  yet  the  most  long- 
sighted of  his  mental  powers. 

(/;)  Secondly,  as  regards  method.  The  criticisms  of 
the  previous  section  foreshadowed  a  simple,  and,  I  hope, 
adequate,  plan  of  procedure.  They  showed  us  that  we 
are  dealing  with  two  parties,  each  of  which  has  been  led 
by  its  own  '  irreconcilables '  to  overstate  its  case.  Evi- 
dently, then,  our  policy  as  would-be  arbitrators  is,  so  to 
speak,  to  summon  mass-meetings  of  each  party  in  turn. 
Face  to  face  with  their  pretensions,  let  us  try  to  reason 
away  whatever  therein  seems  excessive.  Could  this  be 
done,  the  formality  of  a  final  adjudication  ought  not  to 
delay  us  long. 


244  R-   R-   MARETT  v 

To  particularise,  let  us  first  confront  the  'evolutionary' 
inquirers  into  Origin  with  the  '  facts,'  and  ask  them 
whether  their  working  hypotheses  do  not  practically  fail  to 
account  for  the  almost  unconditional  Validity  of  certain  of 
the  '  higher  ' — more  '  spiritual ' — moral  motives.  Then, 
on  the  other  hand,  let  us  contrive  such  a  version  of  the 
rights  of  Validity  as  shall  secure  it  undisputed  primacy, 
and  yet  not  absolute  immunity  from  all  control,  direct  or 
indirect,  on  the  part  of  the  study  of  Origins.  It  will 
thereafter  but  remain  to  draw  up  some  sort  of  balance- 
sheet  of  concessions  given  and  received,  in  order  to 
determine  for  each  principle  its  legitimate  share  of 
authority  in  morals. 

V.  MERE  ORIGIN  AS  AN  ETHICAL  STANDPOINT 

§15.  That  there  are  evolutionists  and  evolutionists  is 
being  gradually  recognised,  even  by  those  who  are  disposed 
to  distrust  all  alike  that  arrogate  to  themselves  this  title. 
For  our  present  purpose,  however,  they  must  revert  to  all 
the  inconveniencies  of  close  companionship.  In  regard  to 
morals,  at  least,  let  them  be  treated  as  being  of  one  mind. 
To  the  ethical  portions  of  the  Descent  of  Man  and  to  the 
Data  of  Ethics  let  there  be  ascribed  a  common  faith,  the 
faith  of  naturalism,  and  a  common  set  of  working 
principles,  the  principles  of  natural  selection,  of  the 
association  of  ideas,  and  so  forth.  Possibly  injustice  will 
hereby  be  done  to  the  individuals  concerned  (though  of 
individuals,  if  only  for  reasons  of  space,  there  will  be  little 
mention  for  good  or  ill).  But  this  is  to  be  condoned 
on  account  of  the  greater  '  objectivity  '  that  may  by  this 
means  be  given  to  something  that  can  only  be  described 
as  an  '  atmosphere ' — an  atmosphere  thick  with  meta- 
physical bacilli  which  the  average  man  of  science  (is  he 
not  used  to  vitiated  atmosphere  ?)  breathes  with  comfort 
doubtless,  but  not  perhaps  without  a  certain  cost. 

The  evolutionists  that  I  have  in  my  eye — the  ex- 
tremists of  whom  I  would  present  a  composite  impres- 
sion—  may  be  charged  with  subscribing  to  some  form 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     245 

of  that  moral  philosophy  to  which  Mr.  Spencer  has 
given  the  question-begging  name  of  '  rational  utilitari- 
anism.'1 In  support  of  such  a  position  they  are  wont 
to  bring  forward  an  array  of  evidence  which  (in  my 
opinion  at  least)  would  be  sufficiently  convincing,  were 
it  but  strictly  relevant.  Nature,  they  assert,  that  is, 
physiological  nature,  is  wholly  given  over  to  an 
'unconscious  utilitarianism' — understanding  here  by 
4  utility '  the  quality  of  making  simply  for  survival.  It  is, 
for  instance,  in  view  of  this  '  biological  end  '  (for  these 
naturalistic  philosophers  are  prodigal  of  psychological 
metaphor)  that  protective  mimicry  produces  the  leaf- 
pattern  on  the  butterfly's  wing.  The  whole  essence  of 
instinct,  in  short,  consists  in  this  its  function  of 
protectiveness.  Its  be-all  and  end-all  is  to  modify  the 
play  of  the  vital  forces  to  the  profit  of  the  organism  in  its 
struggle  for  existence. 

Well,  suppose  we  grant  this.  Suppose  we  say  that, 
regarded  as  an  '  empirical  law,'  the  generalisation  fairly 
fits  the  '  facts.'  Ethically,  however,  the  crux  of  the 
utilitarian  argument  does  not,  and  can  not,  lie  here.  Why 
forsooth  must  we  take  the  alleged  '  law '  for  more  than  it 
is  logically  worth  ?  We  have  been  presented  with  certain 
'  facts ' — certain  things  that  arc,  and  moreover  are  in 
virtue  of  physiological  nature  being  what  it  is.  But  why 
therefore  conclude,  as  if  the  parity  of  reasoning  were 
unquestionable,  that  utilitarianism,  in  the  sense  of  the 
pursuit  of  sheer  survival,  provides  the  '  law '  (i.e.  policy, 
not  generalised  observation)  that  ouglit  to  govern  the 
conscious  nature  of  man  ? 

"  At  any  rate  a  most  familiar  crux,"  says  the 
naturalistic  philosopher.  "  The  things  that  are  and 
the  things  that  ought  to  be  —  the  inevitable  'ditch.' 
But  we  have  not  the  smallest  intention  of  jumping  it, 
because  we  do  not  want  to  get  across.  There  is  fairly 
firm  walking-ground  on  our  side.  On  the  other  side — 
well,  our  friends  who  are  after  Free  Will,  the  Absolute, 
and  so  on,  may  be  standing  still  in  order  to  think  better, 

1   Cf.  Data  of  Ethics  §  21. 


246  R.  R.   MARETT  v 

but  they  certainly  do  not  seem  to  be  getting  on? — "  But 
we,"  let  us  answer,  "  are  with  you  on  your  side  of  the  ditch. 
With  you  we  entrust  ourselves  to  the  '  facts '  ;  and  would 
inquire  with  you  whether  they  all  point  one  way." 

§  1 6.  For  there  are,  or  have  been, those  loftily  unpractical 
metaphysicians  who  would  declare  that  to  reason  from 
the  '  is  '  of  empirical  science  to  the  '  ought '  of  normative 
Ethics  is  nothing  short  of  a  paralogism.  That  free  or 
unconditioned  will  has  alone  the  right  to  pronounce  the 
'  ought '  is,  they  would  contend,  an  axiom.  Which  axiom 
rests  on  a  priori  grounds  of  proof.  Wherefore  it  is  bound 
to  remain  wholly  unaffected  by  any  merely  phenomenal 
evidence  of  a  '  trend,'  be  it  physiological  or  psychological, 
in  human  nature. 

But  they  are  at  best  but  dubious  allies  of  Validity  that 
thus  seek  to  cut  it  off  '  as  if  with  a  hatchet '  from  Origin. 
Moreover,  whilst  their  talk  makes  for  unconditional  dualism, 
they  live  (like  the  rest  of  us)  a  life  of  distracted  monism. 
The  '  ought '  of  their  practice  gives  the  lie  to  the  absolute 
4  ought '  of  their  books.  To  their  concrete  consciousness 
(for  are  not  they,  even  as  we  are,  human  ?)  the  '  ought '  of 
practical  life  is  a  unity  qualified  by  an  inner  diversity.  It 
is  two  things  at  once — subject  to  actual  warring  experi- 
ences, and  assertive  of  a  de  jure  authority  to  combine  these 
under  a  law.  No,  there  is  almost  more  hope  for  that  other 
apriorist  Mr.  Spencer,  who,  if  he  renders  '  ought '  com- 
pletely superfluous  by  treating  it  as  the  empty  subjective 
echo  of  an  inflexible  objective  '  is,'  at  any  rate  errs  in  the 
cause  of  synthesis.  And  even  cocksure  materialistic 
synthesis  is  better  than  the  dualism  that  spells  philo- 
sophic despair. 

Let  us,  then,  stick  to  our  initial  resolve  to  be 
experimental.  Let  us  entrust  ourselves  to  the  guidance, 
uncertain  though  it  needs  must  be,  of  a  critical  empiricism. 
For  us  there  shall  be  a  psychological  '  ought '  that  is  no 
less  empirical  fact  in  its  way  than  the  uncompromising 
'  is  '  of  instinct.  We  shall  frankly  admit  it  as  part  of  our 
working  hypothesis  with  regard  to  moral  obligation  that 
certain  determinations  '  from  without '  do  as  a  matter  of 


v         ORIGIN  AND  VALIDITY  IN  ETHICS     247 

'  fact '  form  a  moment  in  it.  On  the  other  hand,  we 
shall  no  less  frankly  assume  on  the  strength  of 
'  appearances  ' — on  the  testimony  of  consciousness,  to  wit 
— that  we  are  also  able  to  some  extent  to  determine  our 
own  courses.  Such  a  double-edged  provisional  view  is  not 
dualism,  but  its  antidote.  It  postulates  no  ultimate  incom- 
patibility, but  rather  foreshadows  eventual  convergence. 
Origin  and  Validity,  if  ever  they  are  to  fight  it  out  and 
be  friends,  must  first  be  given  the  chance  of  meeting  on 
common  ground.  And  then  by  all  means — at\ivov 
atXivov  etTre,  TO  8'  ev  vt/cdra). 

§17.  It  will  perhaps  be  objected,  however,  that  some 
evolutionists  at  all  events  are  quite  ready  '  at  a  certain 
level  of  thought '  to  recognise  this  duality  in  unity  of  the 
psychological  '  ought '  ;  that,  in  particular,  a  distinction 
which  opposes  the  psychological  effects  of  '  natural '  to 
those  of  '  conscious '  selection  is  finding  its  way  into 
current  sociology. 

Quite  so.  The  distinction  is  there.  But  is  it  used  ? 
It  is  old  enough,  indeed,  to  have  borne  fruit.  For  it  goes 
back  as  far  as  Bagehot — that  most  level-headed  of 
the  exponents  of  Development.  Already  in  Physics  and 
Politics  we  find  the  contrast  drawn  between  the  savage 
mind,  "  tatooed  all  over"  with  its  indelible  unalterable 
notions,  and  the  mind  of  one  living  in  the  "  age  of 
discussion,"  who  can  put  off  the  old  man  in  favour  of 
the  new  almost  as  readily  as  he  can  change  his  coat. 
But  in  the  mouths  of  Bagehot's  successors  the  distinction 
survives  as  a  vague  platitude.  (After  all,  what  can  be 
vaguer  than  current  sociology  ?)  Or  worse,  where  Bagehot 
employed  a  few  picturesque  expressions  to  differentiate 
the  two  stages  of  a  continuous  evolution,  the  solemn 
parade  of  a  technical  antithesis  now  gives  the  suggestion 
of  an  absolute  separation.  '  The  savage  is  selected,  the 
civilised  man  selects  ' — this  is  the  sort  of  statement  we 
read,  or  might  read  any  day. 

But  it  is  just  this  kind  of  phrase-making  with  a 
hatchet  that  is  not  wanted  in  comparative  psychology. 
For,  when  we  speak  of  the  effects  of '  natural '  as  opposed 


248  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

to  those  of  '  conscious  '  selection,  what  ought  we  to  mean  ? 
Surely,  the  pure  instincts.  But  every  genuine  student  of 
social  and  moral  origins  knows  that,  as  far  as  the  pure 
instincts  are  concerned,  he  is,  for  the  practical  purposes  of 
his  science,  as  far  off  from  them  when  dealing  with  the 
savage  as  when  dealing  with  civilised  man.  For  example, 
the  analogies  between  the  habits  of  animals  and  the 
customs  of  the  most  backward  native  of  Australia  prove 
so  faint  as  to  cast  no  light  at  all  on  any  of  the  special 
developments  within  the  moral  nature  of  the  latter.  The 
savage  is  no  automaton.  He  reveals  more  '  inwardness ' 
the  more  closely  he  is  studied.  Doubtless,  however,  he 
differs  from  his  civilised  brother  in  being  relatively 
unselective.  He  too  has  his  principles.  But  they  come 
to  him  early  in  life,  and,  when  they  come,  they  come  to 
stay.  Hence  Nature  tends  to  deal  with  his  heresies 
somewhat  after  the  manner  of  a  Spanish  inquisitor.  She 
gets  at  the  heresy  through  the  heretic.  But  with  civilised 
man  the  inquisitorial  method  of  conversion  is  on  the 
whole  a  failure.  One  martyr  makes  many  proselytes. 
Principles  have,  as  it  were,  made  themselves  independent 
of  persons.  Consequently  they  must  be  acquitted  or 
condemned  on  their  own  merits  by  a  jury  of  their  peers. 
Or,  to  vary  the  metaphor,  the  struggle  for  existence  is 
transferred  from  civilised  mankind  to  his  ideas.  The 
ideas  fight,  and  the  civilised  individual,  being  '  adaptable,' 
finds  salvation  by  consorting  with  the  winner.  But  the 
most  primitive  'Why-why'  is  also  reflective  and 
'  adaptable ' — at  any  rate  in  regard  to  the  smaller 
matters  of  life.  Generally  and  on  the  whole,  he  too  is  the 
self-determining  man,  and  not  the  animal  which  is 
determined.  The  presumable  instincts  of  some  far-off 
progenitor  cannot,  by  the  most  ardent  advocate  of 
'  parallelism  '  as  a  principle  of  constructive  psychology,  be 
said  to  have  reproduced  themselves  at  all  directly  or 
exactly  in  the  sentiments  and  ideas  that  '  react ' — as  the 
phrase  is —  upon  his  conduct.  These  instincts  may,  or 
may  not,  in  some  metaphysical  sense  have  been  gradually 
'translated  '  into  terms  of  consciousness.  The  translation, 


ORIGIN  AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     249 

however,  is  at  any  rate  of  so  free  a  description  that  the 
working  psychologist  is  bound  to  distinguish,  and  to  rate 
at  a  certain  value  of  its  own,  the  peculiar  contribution  of 
the  translating  mind. 

What,  then,  is  wanted  in  the  comparative  psychology 
of  morals  ?  The  answer  is  obvious — "  Not  question- 
begging  terminology,  but  question-solving  research."  For 
ours  is  the  empirical  '  level  of  thought '  ;  and  the  empiricist 
has  no  business  to  decide  a  priori  whether  a  man's  sense 
of  Validity  enables  him  wholly  or  in  part  to  guide  him- 
self, or  whether  Origin  (in  the  naturalistic  sense  of 
instinct),  operating  '  subliminally '  as  a  vis  a  tergo,  does 
all  the  guiding  for  him.  He  must  put  aside  extreme 
metaphysical  views,  such  as  that  all  consciousness  is  mere 
'  epiphenomenon,'  or,  contrariwise,  that  all  consciousness 
as  such  involves  selectiveness  in  the  sense  of  spontaneity. 
His  business  is  to  go  to  the  facts — to  let  them  speak  for 
themselves.  Now  his  facts  are  prima  fade  all  of  a  piece, 
in  that  they  are  all  alike  psychical.  On  the  other  hand 
their  import  is  ambiguous,  some  making  for  determinism, 
others  for  freedom.  Hence  he  is  bound  to  work  in  the 
first  instance  on  the  hypothesis  of  a  duality  in  unity.  He 
must  concede  the  possibility  of  there  being  two  moments 
in  the  moral  nature,  a  '  fatal '  and  a  '  free.'  And  he  must 
try  his  best  to  disentangle  these  two  threads,  when 
analysing  a  given  '  mixed  state '  of  consciousness,  by 
means  of  such  empirical  tests  as  the  appearances 
themselves  suggest. 

When,  however,  we  would  seek  for  enlightenment  on 
this,  or  any  other,  point  in  psychological  histories  of  moral 
evolution,  behold  none  worthy  of  the  name  are  in 
existence  !  Who,  then,  shall  blame  us  if  as  irresponsible 
essayists  we  venture  in  a  fragmentary  way  to  anticipate 
the  tenor  of  such  an  investigation  ? 

§  i  8.  Let  us,  then,  first  consider  the  case  of  a  specific 
development  throughout  which  the  leading  part  would 
seem  to  be  played  by  the  '  fatal  '  moment  in  our  moral 
nature. 

When  the  savage  embarks  on  matrimony  he  is  moved 


250  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

thereto  by  a  considerable  variety  of  converging  '  causes  '- 
to  use  a  neutral  term.  In  the  background,  according  to 
the  evolutionist,  there  must  be  postulated  as  most 
'  original '  cause  of  all  a  mating  instinct.  This,  of  all 
'  deferred '  instincts,  is,  he  maintains,  the  most  complex. 
It  embraces  diverse  moments,  the  '  objects  '  of  which  range 
from  the  mere  gratification  of  appetite,  or  of  a  jealous 
desire  for '  sexual  appropriation,'  to  the  cherishing,  feeding, 
housing,  and  protecting,  of  wives  and  offspring.  All  this, 
however,  is  in  the  background.  The  practical  anthro- 
pologist knows  of  instinct  only  as  a  hypothetical  something 
that  has  precipitated  and  particularised  itself  in  a  mass 
of  customs.  These  customs,  no  doubt,  are  relatively — 
but  only  relatively — '  blind.'  It  is  true  that,  for  example, 
the  time  and  mode  of  his  marriage  are  virtually  pre- 
determined for  the  tribesman.  But  to  say  that  imitation 
and  tradition  '  insensibly '  put  their  special,  and,  as  it  were, 
local,  stamp  on  the  plastic  congenital  tendency  is  either 
to  speak  in  a  metaphor,  or  to  go  beyond  the  facts.  It 
were  indeed  far  truer  to  say  that  a  specifically  social 
consciousness,  though  of  a  rudimentary  kind,  has  already 
come  into  play.  Nor  are  higher  manifestations  of  its 
influence  far  to  seek.  Marriage  custom  as  supported  either 
by  an  actively  persecuting  public  opinion,  or  by  a  system 
of  gentile  vendetta  encouraged  by  public  opinion,  is 
nascent  law.  Or  again,  disasters,  whether  coincidental  or 
causally  connected,  attending  the  violation  of  marriage 
custom  concur  with  various  other  grounds  and  occasions 
of  belief  in  a  supernatural  principle  to  reinforce  ancestral 
usage  with  the  authority  of  religion.  And  though,  as 
compared  with  law,  religion  may  be  somewhat  capricious 
in  its  choice  of  a  social  cause  to  champion,  yet  as  often  as 
it  happens  to  take  the  side  of  salutary  practice,  it  is 
probably  the  more  effectual  '  pro-ethical  sanction  '  of  the 
two.  Further,  with  the  coming  into  being  of  such  legal 
and  religious  ordinances — which,  as  a  rule,  will  coincide 
in  their  injunctions,  as  for  instance  when  they  jointly 
prohibit  marriage  within  the  kin,  or  with  certain  kinsfolk 
— there  must  correspondingly  arise  (the  evolutionist  at 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     251 

any  rate  cannot  disallow  this  appeal  to  his  '  law  of 
association ')  prudential  considerations  in  the  breast  of  the 
individual.  Which  considerations,  i  must  be  admitted, 
constitute  integral  factors  in  a  social  consciousness,  seeing 
that  in  respect  to  the  conduct  they  enjoin,  though  not  as 
regards  the  motive  they  allege,  they  are  actually  on  a  par 
with  ethical  judgments  proper.  Nor  indeed  are  indica- 
tions lacking  of  the  existence  of  distinctively  ethical 
sentiments  and  ideas  on  the  subject  of  love  and  marriage 
in  the  minds  of  the  most  backward  savages  known  to 
anthropology.  Two  illustrations  must  suffice.  Let  us 
note  how  such  deliberate  and  solemn  pronouncements  as 
the  '  ten  commandments '  at  initiation  or  the  wedding- 
address — not  to  mention  the  thousand  folk-tales  and 
proverbs  that  lightly  flit  from  mouth  to  mouth  —  exalt 
the  virtues  of  the  good  husband  for  their  own  sake  and  '  in 
themselves,'  that  is,  as  simply  fine  and  admirable.  Or 
again,  let  us  note  how  the  rhapsodies  of  the  love-sick  swain 
(though  doubtless  apt  to  be  tinged  with  a  more  or  less 
delicate  sensuality — such  as  appears  so  frequently  in  their 
modern  counterpart !)  yet  are  found  likewise  to  profess 
a  tenderness  and  disinterestedness  of  affection  that 
argues  the  presence  of  a  certain  ethical  ideal  amongst 
the  incentives  of  courtship. 

§  1 9.  Well  (taking  for  what  it  is  worth  this  perfunctory 
sketch  of  a  vastly  complex  development),  what  are  we  to 
make  of  the  '  causes '  alleged  ?  Do  they  make  on  the 
whole  for  determinism,  or  do  they  make  on  the  whole  for 
freedom  ?  On  the  face  of  them  all  the  causes  are  alike 
psychical.  Some  are  ethical,  the  rest  are  (in  Mr.  Spencer's 
phrase)  'pro-ethical.'  If  a  non-ethical  determinant, 
namely  instinct,  lurk  in  the  background,  it  must  be 
discovered  by  the  flavour  of  'Origin'  that  it  imparts  to 
its  effects  in  consciousness.  Perhaps  the  adherent  of 
Validity  exclaims  :  "  If  the  claimant  cannot  appear  in 
person,  surely  the  case  goes  by  default." — No,  as  empirical 
psychologists,  we  have  decided  to  hear  him  through  his 
representatives.  If,  however,  these  halt  and  hesitate  in 
their  report,  that  is  his  look-out. 


252  R.   R.   MARETT  v 

Let  us  allow,  then,  in  regard  to  these  causes,  that, 
although  all  are  alike  in  being  psychical,  and  even,  in 
a  broad  sense,  purposive,  they  form  a  mass  of  ambiguous 
appearances.  In  the  case  of  some  the  '  biological  end  ' 
of  sheer  survival  seems  '  really '  to  be  subserved.  In  the 
case  of  others  the  enhancing  of  the  worth  of  life  seems 
sufficient  motive  '  in  itself.'  Sometimes  the  (assumed) 
primordial  instinct  seems  directly  reproduced  in  the 
conscious  tendency.  Sometimes  it  seems  replaced  by 
something  independently  authoritative.  Nor  is  the 
ambiguity  noticeable  merely  when  we  look  at  the  facts 
of  consciousness  'from  the  outside.1  When  we  look  into 
ourselves  it  feels  at  times  as  if  we  were  half  unconsciously 
shaping  our  policy  to  suit  our  instinctive  leanings,  at 
other  times  as  if  we  were  compelling  those  leanings 
to  subordinate  themselves  to  our  sense  of  worth  and 
right. 

Let  us,  therefore,  give  the  naturalistic  thinker  a  fair 
hearing  when  he  pleads  for  'original'  survival -seeking 
bias  as  the  predominant  moment  in  man's  career  as 
a  domestic  being.  Let  us  even  put  up  with  such 
exaggerations  as  there  may  be  in  the  statement  of  his 
case.  When  the  most  that  he  can  affirm  is  a  relative 
predominance,  and  no  definite  criterion  of  predominance 
is  to  hand,  the  literary  device  of  '  colouring '  may  not 
unpardonably  be  employed  as  a  scientific  make-shift. 

§  20.  "  The  moral  sentiment,"  we  shall  suppose  our  evolu- 
tionist to  argue,  "  which  makes  itself  felt  in  the  domestic 
virtues,  is  on  the  whole  and  predominantly  but  the  slavish 
echo  of  a  congenital  tendency.  With  this  tendency  the 
sentiment  in  question  is  doubtless  out  of  harmony  at  times. 
To  that  extent,  however,  it  is  out  of  harmony  with  man's 
real  and  abiding  welfare — to  wit,  the  welfare  that  consists 
in  surviving  and  causing  to  survive.  The  home  life  of 
savages  may  present  forbidding  features  to  the  idealisers 
of  love  and  marriage.  Their  semi-instinctive  customs, 
nevertheless,  are  capable  of  sustaining  a  breed  of  hardy, 
and  so  presumably  happy,  men.  Nor  does  the  civilised 
man,  for  all  that  he  may  be  shocked  to  hear  it,  depart 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IX   ETHICS     253 

far  from  the  ways  of  his  remote  forebears  when  bent  on 
founding  a  family.  With  him  as  with  them  love  is 
mostly  '  blind.'  Reasons,  moral  or  otherwise,  fail  on 
the  whole  to  affect  it.  Civilised  love  pays  little  conscious 
attention  to  material,  and  less  to  physiological,  considera- 
tions touching  the  future.  Nor  can  it  even  be  affirmed 
that  a  coldly  rational  matrimonial  policy  when  tried  has 
been  found  to  pay.  Nor  would  any  one  maintain  that 
the  schemes  of  marriage  reform  propounded  by  the  wise 
have  redounded  to  their  credit.  Or  once  more,  is  it  not 
significant  what  little  prominence  is  given  in  the  writings 
of  the  moralist  to  the  canons  of  domestic  duty — 
understood  in  any  broad  and  scientific  sense  ?  To  marry 
4  well '  is  hardly  reckoned  amongst  the  cardinal  virtues. 
And  why  ?  Because  the  trend  of  instinct  renders  ethical 
precept  on  this  head  practically  superfluous.  You  say 
you  are  free.  You  say  that  '  follow  Nature '  in  our  sense 
of  '  Nature '  cannot  serve  as  a  general  rule  of  life.  That 
may  be,  or  may  not  be.  At  any  rate,  however,  you  must 
admit  that,  in  respect  to  marriage,  Nature,  unwilling  that 
the  preservation  of  the  race  should  depend  on  the 
fluctuations  of  opinion  as  to  the  merits  of  this  or  that 
ideal,  has  made  what  is  virtually  a  saving-clause  in  the 
charter  of  freedom  you  suppose  her  to  have  bestowed  on 
man.  '  Follow  Nature,'  in  fact,  in  regard  to  marriage, 
is  a  rule  that  is  capable  of  satisfying  prudence  and 
conscience  alike.  It  is  not  in  point  to  reply  that  various 
pro -ethical  and  ethical  sanctions  have  a  perceptible 
'  reactive '  effect  on  the  family  life  of  the  veriest  savage. 
These  influences  are  '  really  '  effective  only  in  respect  to 
the  choice  of  means.  The  supreme  end  of  race-propaga- 
tion is  '  given  '  all  along.  And  it  is  no  less  '  given  '  when 
it  is  somehow  represented  within  the  field  of  conscious 
attention  than  when  it  operates  occultly  as  a  pure 
biological  force.  You  may  insist,  if  you  will,  on  the 
ideal  possibilities  rather  than  on  the  actual  achievements 
of  conscious  selection  in  this  connection.  But  harp  as 
you  will  on  the  intrinsic  reasonableness  of  some  Platonic 
marriage-machine  that  shall  knit  woof  and  warp  together 


254  R-  R-   MARETT  v 

according  to  the  principles  of  an  enlightened  psychology,1 
you  cannot  make  out  much  of  a  case  for  the  superiority 
of  man's  to  primal  nature's  ways.  As  far  as  the  history 
of  marriage  goes,  our  evolutionary  utilitarianism  with  its 
doctrine  that  sheer  survival  is  the  '  real  '  standard  of  the 
good  stands  approved  by  your  practical  failure  to  point 
in  this  case  to  a  self-supporting  spiritual  motive  that 
works — that  puts  itself  prominently  at  the  head  of  affairs, 
and  justifies  its  position  in  consciousness  by  the  felt 
excellence  of  its  peculiar  fruits." 

And  now  as  impartial  judges  let  us  give  ear  to  the 
other  side. 

§  21.  The  upholder  of  conscious  selection  may  be  sup- 
posed to  open  his  reply  by  remarking  that  his  opponent 
has  considerably  underrated  the  '  reactive '  effects  of  such 
forces  as  religion  and  morality  on  love  and  marriage  ; 
that,  consequently,  he  will  set  forth  with  all  due  regard 
to  the  claims  of  history  the  development  of  a  principle — 
the  principle  of  Purity — which  has  precisely  this  appear- 
ance about  it,  that,  whether  ultimately  a  product  of 
natural  selection  or  not,  it  has  at  any  rate  cut  itself 
entirely  free  from  instinct,  and  acquired  the  position 
of  an  independent  self-feeding  focus  of  moral  energy. 

The  sense  of  moral  purity,  according  to  the  evolutionist, 
is  the  outcome  of  taboo.  How  taboo  itself  arose,  however, 
he  is  hardly  able  to  explain.  Why  should  man  '  in  the 
beginning  '  by  force  of  instinct  have  avoided  contact  with 
certain  things  by  no  means  always  palpably  noxious  or  un- 
clean in  themselves  ?  And  why — when  all  allowance  is 
made  for  the  sanctioning  power  of  custom,  that  '  instinct  to 
conserve  instincts ' — was  this  special  kind  of  avoidance 
made  so  absolute,  so  invincibly  will-compelling,  by  the 
world-wide  sentiment  of  the  race  ? 

It  will  be  said — and  perhaps,  historically  speaking,  not 
without  good  reason — that  awe  of  the  Uncanny  is  in  the 
main  responsible  for  this  attitude  of '  reverential  detestation' 
on  the  part  of  the  savage  towards  so  much  that  he  need 
but  understand  to  appreciate  and  use.  But  what  naturalistic 

1   Cf.  Plato,  Politic  us,  310. 


v          ORIGIN  AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     255 

explanation  will  account  for  the  existence  and  power  of 
this  mystic  awe  ?  The  follower  of  Darwin  will  doubtless 
be  content  to  describe  it  as  a  '  by-product  '  of  the  growth 
of  the  intellect.  But  is  this  any  explanation  at  all  ?  Is  it 
not  merely  a  curt  restatement  of  the  fact  to  be  explained  ? 
This  fact  is  that  certain  manifestations  of  mind  to  which 
the  evolutionist  cannot  ascribe  any  function — that  is, 
which  do  not  seem  to  him  to  subserve  directly  and  in 
themselves  the  so-called  '  ends '  of  natural  selection — do 
nevertheless  persist  by  the  side  of  other  activities  which 
he  regards  as  palpably  furthering  survival.  All  that  '  by- 
product '  does,  therefore,  is  to  mask  the  gratuitous 
assumption  that  some  '  latent  affinity '  compels  the  two 
groups  of  phenomena,  the  useful  and  the  useless,  to  stand 
or  fall  together.  '  By-product,'  in  short,  represents  but 
the  colourless  negation  of  a  raison  d'etre — presumably 
designed  as  a  counterfoil  to  the  teleological  view  that  the 
so-called  by-product  exists  and  persists  on  the  strength  of 
the  promise  it  contains,  in  other  words,  of  its  eventual 
destination.  "  But  no,"  replies  the  evolutionist  ;  "  '  by- 
product '  has  doubtless  its  metaphysical  implications  of  a 
nature  unfavourable  to  teleology,  but  it  likewise  has  its 
strictly  scientific  use.  It  serves  to  mark  the  actual, 
though  possibly  unexplained,  connection  between  a 
particular  form  of  '  irrational  quantity '  and  a  particular 
race-preserving  tendency.  Thus  for  example,  the  mystic 
horror  which  the  savage  displays  towards  a  corpse  or 
towards  an  issue  of  blood  may  be  connected  by  the  use 
of  a  notion  such  as  '  by-product '  or  '  overflow  '  with  that 
definitely  protective  instinct  which  warns  him,  or  at  any 
rate  warned  his  ancestors,  of  the  proximity  of  death  and 
danger.  These  taboos,  in  short,  fall  into  line  with  what  the 
biologist  knows  as  '  cases  of  misapplied  instinct.' 1  Nature 
works  on  a  system  of  averages,  and  has  to  allow  for  a  margin 
of  error."  To  all  of  which  the  champion  of  Validity 
replies  that  expressions  such  as  'by-product,'  'overflow,' 
and  '  misapplied  instinct '  may  have  a  certain  designatory 
value,  but  that  their  explanatory  value  is  nil. 

1  Cf.  Darwin,  Descent  of  Man,  \.  3  c.djin. 


256  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

"  Meanwhile,"  he  continues,  "  is  it  not  at  all  events 
a  far  cry  from  these  questionable  rudiments  to  that 
sentiment  of  moral  purity  which  in  the  heart  of  civilised 
man  calls  aloud  (with  so  much,  be  it  admitted,  of  the 
solemn  insistence  of  primitive  taboo)  for  the  scrupulous 
avoidance  in  thought  and  word  and  deed  of  all  that  by 
the  aid  of  its  own  self-attested  standard  it  judges  to  be 
morally  contaminating  and  abominable?  Doubtless  the 
evolutionist  will  be  forward  with  his  '  explanation  ' — to 
wit,  his  mere  'exterior  history' — of  the  transition.  He 
will  tell  us,  for  example,  that  lustration  was  first  of  all 
adopted  as  a  means  of  '  drowning  the  infection  ' — at  this 
point,  probably,  already  conceived  as  literally  a  'spiritual' 
infection  ;  and  that  afterwards,  not  so  much  by  analogy 
as  by  a  direct  extension  of  scope,  lustration  and  the 
lustral  idea  came  to  be  applied  to  the  cleansing  of  '  sin,' 
namely  the  infection  derived  by  contact  (at  first  including 
even  involuntary  contact)  with  certain  impure  things,  as, 
for  instance,  bloodshed.  But,  granting  the  plausibility  of 
this  '  exterior  history,'  where  do  we  find  in  it  any 
explanation  of  the  fact  that  man's  sense  of  purity  has 
shaken  itself  free  of  its  back-history  in  becoming  rational 
and  ethical  ?  Taboo  is  virtually  irrational.  It  may 
indeed  in  a  secondary  way  further  tribal  survival  by 
strengthening  pre-existing  habits  of  self-discipline.  But 
primarily,  directly,  intrinsically,  of  its  own  right  as  an 
independent  institution,  it  has  no  utilitarian  function  of 
this  or  any  other  kind  to  which  the  adherent  of  mere 
Origin  can  refer  us.  Taboo  may  provide  the  holy  water. 
But  it  does  not  provide  the  sentiment  that  puts  the  water 
to  a  moral  use." 

§22.  Perhaps  the  timehasscarcely  come  forus  toattempt 
to  arbitrate  between  the  rival  pleaders.  But  it  certainly 
would  seem  as  if  in  his  concluding  question  the  supporter 
of  Validity  offers  something  of  a  poser  to  the  rational 
utilitarian.  "  Whence,"  he  asks  him,  "  is  this  sentiment 
of  the  moral  value  of  Purity,  this  appreciation  of  the 
virtue  that  '  holiness  '  imparts  ?  "  To  which  the  only 
possible  reply  forthcoming  from  the  side  of  Origin  must 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     257 

be  somewhat  as  follows.  "  Ethical  sentiment  at  first  grew 
strong  within  its  proper  nursery,  the  field  of  domestic 
and  tribal  co-operation.  Then  it  proceeded  to  moralise 
religion,  art,  and  the  various  other  intellectual  superfluities 
that  man  had  found  time  to  enjoy,  or  groan  under,  by  the 
way.  This  moralisation  imparted  to  these  latter  as  it 
were  an  entirely  fresh  dose  of  life.  Thus,  though  useless 
as  regards  their  original  proclivities,  they  have  been 
actually  enabled  to  enrol  themselves  amongst  the  factors 
which  make  for  the  survival  of  civilised  man." 

But  these  superfluities  that  turn  out  by  a  '  chance  '  not 
to  have  been  superfluous  after  all — are  they  '  natural,'  even 
according  to  the  working  hypothesis  which  the  evolutionist 
makes  concerning  '  Nature '  I  Surely  it  is  putting  a 
considerable  strain  on  the  '  Happy  Accident  theory  '  to  call 
upon  it  to  account,  not  merely  for  '  spontaneous  variations,' 
but  likewise  for  the  '  spontaneous '  persistence  of  all  sorts 
of  superfluities.  These  obliging  'sports'  of  nature 
persevere  in  their  being  although  there  is  no  '  biological 
end  '  for  them  to  serve.  Then  lo  and  behold,  one  day  the 
moral  consciousness  awakes  to  the  fact  of  their  existence, 
and  does  them  the  supererogatory  favour  of  providing 
them  with  an  ideal  end  ! 

We  are  not  called  upon  here  to  decide  whether  the 
naturalistic  '  explanation  '  of  the  genesis  of  the  idea  of 
moral  purity  is  metaphysically  possible  or  impossible — 
whether  it  is  metaphysically  conceivable  or  not  that 
'  external  nature,'  like  man,  is  capable  of  indulging  in 
sports  and  slips,  and  then  of  making  up  the  lost  ground 
by  subsequently  turning  them  to  useful  account.  Our 
concern  here  is  entirely  with  the  balance  of  empirical 
probability.  We  have  left  behind  us  that  serene,  if  barren, 
region  of  philosophy  where  all  compromise  between  the 
claims  of  Matter  and  Mind  is  on  a  priori  grounds  for- 
bidden. We  are  allowing  that  some  of  our  propensities 
may  bear  as  it  were  automatically  on  simple  race- 
preservation,  whilst  others  again  may  possess  as  ideal 
and  spiritual  motives  of  conduct  a  validity  of  their  own. 
And  we  arc  appealing  to  Origin  in  the  sense  of  history 


258  R.  R.   MARETT  v 

for  the  means  of  verifying,  or  refuting,  our  working  hypo- 
thesis. 

Such,  then,  being  our  method,  let  us  be  the  less  ready 
to  conspire  offhand  with  the  adherent  of  mere  Origin — of 
the  theory  that  the  '  unconscious  utilitarianism  '  of  outer 
nature  is  the  real  force  at  work  in  the  moral  consciousness 
— to  conceal  what  even  he  must  allow  to  be  gaps, 
inevitable,  perhaps,  but  still  gaps,  in  an  otherwise 
plausible  argument.  If  the  history  of  the  idea  of  moral 
purity  '  appears '  to  testify  to  the  moralisation,  by  a  free 
act  on  the  part  of  our  spiritual  nature,  of  an  unmoral  and 
purposeless  taboo,  then,  putting  aside  for  the  moment  all 
metaphysical  prepossessions,  let  us  allow  that  the  balance 
of  empirical  probability  is  in  favour  of  the  spontaneous 
origination  of  a  specific  ideal  by  the  mind.  And  so  too, 
if  previously  it  appeared  that  the  evolutionary  historian  of 
the  development  of  love  and  marriage  made  out  his  case, 
let  us  be  prepared  to  admit  as  regards  another  specific 
'  end  '  that  the  mind  was  on  the  whole  but  passively  re- 
affirming what  the  animal  nature  had  predetermined. 

§23.  It  would  occupy  too  much  space,  were  even  the 
evidence  available,  to  proceed  on  these  lines  to  examine 
the  human  virtues  one  by  one  with  the  object  of  dividing 
them,  according  as  a  '  fatal '  or  a  (  free '  moment  seemed 
to  predominate  in  their  constitution,  into  '  natural '  and 
'  spiritual ' — or  whatever  we  are  to  call  those  of  them 
which  on  the  hypothesis  of  an  all-controlling  struggle  for 
bare  existence  have  to  be  regarded  as  more  or  less 
unessential  and  adscititious.  Indeed,  were  it  possible 
thus  to  deal  with  them  on  their  individual  merits,  it  is 
exceedingly  probable  that  we  should  soon  be  driven  to 
abandon  this  method  of  hard-and-fast  contrast  in  favour 
of  some  more  discriminative  mode  of  treatment.  As  it  is, 
however,  we  must  work  to  suit  our  limitations.  The 
most  we  can  attempt,  before  proceeding  to  sum  up  on  the 
question  of  the  value  of  mere  Origin  as  an  ethical  stand- 
point, is  a  rough  classification  of  the  virtues  under  heads 
as  determined  by  their  history,  and  a  wholesale  character- 
isation of  the  prevailing  purport  of  each  group  according 


ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     259 

as  it  tends  to  emphasise  the  one  or  the  other  kind  of  end, 
the  '  natural '  or  the  '  spiritual.' 

Regarded  as  matter  of  history  the  virtues  seem 
naturally  to  fall  into  five  groups — the  Domestic,  the  Tribal 
or  National,  the  International,  the  Personal,  and  the 
Transcendental.  Of  course  this,  as  any  other  classification 
of  the  kind,  must  be  pronounced  '  artificial '  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  nothing  but  a  piece  of  student's  apparatus.  If 
it  has  a  principle  behind  it,  however,  it  is  this  eminently 
natural  and  historical  principle,  that,  speaking  very 
broadly,  this  arrangement  of  the  virtues  corresponds  with 
the  order  of  their  appearance  in  time.  Some  sort  of 
incoherent  family  life  comes  first  ;  then  through  the  clan 
something  worthy  of  the  name  of  tribe  is  reached  ;  then 
synoecism,  intermarriage,  trade,  religious  proselytisation, 
and,  not  least  of  all,  war  itself  break  down  the  hostile 
barriers  between  people  and  people  ;  then,  compara- 
tively late  in  the  day,  the  unit  (who  before  was  but  a 
fraction)  'finds  himself;  and,  latest  of  all,  the  aspira- 
tions of  certain  of  the  most  unitary  of  the  units 
towards  the  highest  kind  of  individuality  lead  them 
to  sacrifice  everything  to  this,  or  some  closely  allied,  ideal 
principle. 

If,  then,  we  accept  for  working  purposes  this 
classification  of  the  virtues  into  five  groups,  we  shall  find 
that  the  first  two  groups  appear  on  the  whole  to  subserve 
the  '  natural '  end  of  race-preservation,  and  the  two  last  to 
make  for  a  '  spiritual '  self-perfection,  whilst  the  remaining 
group  presents  intermediate  features. 

§  24.  Of  the  Domestic  virtues  we  have  heard  something 
already,  though  we  were  not  allowed  to  notice  in  any 
detail  the  many-sided  nature  of  the  influence  they  exert 
on  race-preserving  conduct,  as  notably,  for  instance,  when 
they  pave  a  way  for  the  advent  of  the  National  virtues  by 
the  promotion  of  gentile  solidarity.  Affection,  dutifulness, 
respect,  fidelity,  and  so  forth,  as  between  husband  and 
wife,  parents  and  children,  brothers  and  sisters,  and 
generally  as  between  all  those  who  are  bound  together  by 
'kindly'  (that  is,  kin-ly)  relations,  are  to  all  appearance 


260  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

the  outcome  of  a  single  '  natural '  impulse  ;  which  impulse, 
if  it  undergo  considerable  modification  in  respect  to  the 
channels  along  which  it  flows  as  the  '  control '  of 
consciousness  increases,  yet  at  all  events  would  seem  to 
keep  fairly  true  to  its  assumed  '  original '  destination,  the 
maintenance  of  a  healthy  and  fertile  breed  of  men.  No 
doubt  there  are  certain  changes  which  go  near  to  affecting  its 
main  character.  For  example,  as,  with  the  development 
of  the  National  virtues,  society  grows  more  widely 
coherent,  the  mutual  support  of  the  whole  brotherhood  of 
blood-relations  becomes  less  and  less  essential  to  the 
prosperity  of  each  separate  household  ;  so  that  the  function 
of  the  family  '  instinct '  is  to  this  extent  curtailed.  Or 
again,  as  there  is  gradually  developed  a  refined  sense  of 
the  claims  of  personality,  the  '  utilitarian '  aspects  of 
marriage  tend  to  fade  into  the  background,  and  romantic 
love  as  between  '  kindred  souls '  comes  to  assert  itself 
under  favourable  circumstances  as  truly  an  '  end  in  itself 
To  which,  however,  the  supporter  of  the  theory  of  the 
predominating  '  natural '  fatality  may  not  without  some 
reason  reply  that,  in  the  former  case,  one  instinct  is  but 
foregoing  a  part  of  its  dominion  in  order  to  make  room 
for  another,  whilst,  as  regards  the  latter  case,  he  may 
urge  that  the  exigencies  of  '  spiritual  love'  do  not  at  any 
rate  tend  seriously  to  interfere  with  the  workings  of  the 
underlying  physiological  cause. 

§25.  Again,  it  is  a  colourable  view  that  the  National 
virtues,  no  less  than  the  Domestic,  must  be  ranked  amongst 
the  indispensable  conditions  of  a  persistent  society  regarded 
simply  as  a  kind  of  '  natural '  organism.  The  traces  are 
apparent  in  man  of  a  '  social  instinct,'  which,  by  bringing 
about  a  devotion  to  common  interests,  a  friendliness  of 
intercourse,  and  a  willingness  to  give  and  take,  converts 
the  state  into  a  compact  body,  capable  as  such  of 
asserting  itself  with  success  as  against  competing  associa- 
tions. Patriotism,  good-fellowship,  and  justice  Cnot  to 
mention  in  their  detail  the  virtues  subordinate  to  these 
three,  whereof  loyalty,  charity,  and  honesty  arc  severally 
examples)  would  seem  to  be  the  triple  historical  outcome 


of  what — -to  borrow  Kipling's  phrase — may  be  called   the 
'  pack-law  '  of  the  social  animal — 

As  the  creeper  that  girdles  the  tree-trunk  the  Law  runneth  forward 

and  back — 
For  the  strength  of  the    Pack  is  the  Wolf,  and  the  strength  of  the 

Wolf  is  the  Pack. 

Doubtless,  however,  the  history  of  these  virtues  has 
its  other  side.  The  spirit  of  patriotism  as  exalted  in  the 
self-sacrifice  of  a  Decius  almost  touches  the  Transcen- 
dental virtues.  The  refinements  of  social  intercourse, 
as  interpreted,  for  instance,  by  Aristotle  in  his  analysis 
of  the  '  elegant  virtues,'  seem  to  take  their  place  less 
naturally  amongst  the  objects  of  an  '  art  of  living '  than 
amongst  those  of  an  '  art  of  living  well.'  Or  once  more, 
justice,  the  sympathetic  respect  for  another's  '  rights,' 
surely  presupposes  as  a  condition  of  the  sympathy  a 
'  sense  of  rights '  on  the  part  of  the  individual  such  as 
lies  at  the  root  of  the  Personal  virtues.  Allowing  for 
all  this,  however,  on  the  ground  that  our  present  contrast 
of  tendencies  is  admittedly  a  drastic  expedient,  let  us 
concede  to  the  party  of  mere  Origin  that  perhaps  the 
character  which  shows  uppermost  in  this  group,  when 
everything  has  been  taken  into  account  that  tells 
the  other  way,  is  still  that  of  '  preliminary  virtues  '- 
appliances  of  group-survival,  without  which  man  must 
live  '  cyclopically,'  nay,  in  such  a  condition  of  chaotic 
atomism  that,  as  the  Jungle  Hook  suggests,  not  even 
homo  Jiomini  lupus  would  any  longer  be  predicable  of  such 
a  being. 

§  26.  To  attempt  to  represent  the  Personal  virtues,  that 
is,  the  various  forms  of  commendable  self-respect,  as 
altogether  lacking  a  '  natural  '  base  would  be,  of  course, 
to  break  off  all  communications  with  the  allies  of  Origin. 
But  this  is  precisely  what,  at  our  empirical  '  level,'  we 
can  not,  and  must  not,  do.  Let  us,  therefore,  go  so  far 
as  even  to  accept  the  theory  that,  of  all  the  instincts 
proper  to  the  biological  organism,  self-preservation  is 
the  most  original.  "  For  the  individual  organism,"  argue 
the  defenders  of  this  view,  "  is  historically  prior  to  the 


262  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

social.  It  is  true  that  the  most  rudimentary  forms  of 
life  look  like  'jellified  republics.'  But  their  constitution 
is  not  really  political.  Either  the  parts  cohere,  and  the 
economy  they  compose  is  therefore  to  some  extent 
physiologically  '  internal,'  and  thus  individual  as  against 
them.  Or  they  tend  to  split  off  and  become  each  an 
independent  centre  of  vitality — once  more  the  individual." 
Well,  be  this  as  it  may,  let  us  be  prepared  to  allow  that 
the  socially  respectable  tendencies  of  man  as  self-regarding 
— the  laudable  ambitions,  implanted  in  him  by  tradition 
and  training  no  less  than  by  instinct,  to  live,  to  love,  to 
own,  to  enjoy,  to  be  distinguished  in  his  person,  to  be 
forcible  in  his  personality — are  in  some  degree,  at  all 
events,  the  historical  outcome  of  that  nisns  to  persist 
though  it  be  at  the  expense  of  others,  which  all  living 
matter  manifests  in  one  or  another  form. 

But  is  this  the  only  side — or  the  striking  side — to 
the  history  of  these  virtues  ?  Has  not  the  original  nisus 
in  a  most  remarkable  way  '  translated '  itself  out  of  a 
mere  '  will  to  live  '  into  a  '  will  to  live  well  ?  '  "  What 
does  not  bear  on  survival  is  by-product,"  is  the  curt 
answer  of  the  upholder  of  natural  selection.  Well,  we 
cannot  discuss  that  '  explanation '  here.  At  least, 
however,  let  us  note  that,  in  connection  with  the  Personal 
virtues, '  Nature '  would  seem  to  allow  the  superfluous  '  will 
to  live  well'  considerable  play.  It  is  not  the  force  and 
range  of  the  human  appetite  for  personal  well-being  that 
is,  naturalistically,  so  unaccountable.  It  is  rather  the 
extraordinary  extent  to  which  that  appetite,  when 
circumscribed  by  a  due  regard  for  the  similar  appetites 
of  others,  can  be  indulged  without  prejudice,  and 
yet  without  apparent  assistance,  to  the  struggle  for  bare 
existence.  Most  unaccountable  fact  of  all  from  this — and 
indeed  from  any — point  of  view,  man  would  seem  actually 
capable  of  deliberately  framing,  and  carrying  out,  the 
resolution  to  put  an  end  to  his  life.  But  can  this  be 
regarded  as  mere  exhaustion  and  pale  extinction  on  the 
part  of  the  natural  propensity  to  persist  ?  Is  it  not,  rather, 
to  all  appearance  the  positive  conquest  of  instinct  by 


ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     263 

something  absolutely  alien  to  it  ?  How  can  instinct  have 
generated  that  out  of  itself  which  from  above,  as  it  were, 
turns  upon  it  and  slays  it  ?  How  can  the  stream  rise 
proprio  niotu  above  its  source  ? 

§  27.  At  precisely  the  other  end  of  the  moral  scale  to 
suicide  we  find  the  Transcendental  virtues,  and  from  them 
may  hope  to  obtain  a  less  ambiguous  illustration  of  the  power 
of  the  human  will  to  prevail  against  Nature  '  even  to  the 
death.'  These  virtues  embody  the  aspiration  towards  a 
more  or  less  unconditional  perfection  of  existence — the 
'  life  after  God.'  To  the  most  refined  spirits  they  appear 
to  contain  '  in  themselves '  the  promise  and  foretaste  of 
such  a  life.  Holiness,  pure  unselfishness,  the  love  of  the 
ideal — these  seem  not  so  much  to  be  'of  the  'natural 
life'  as  'above'  it.  Representing,  then,  as  they  do  the 
supremest  and  maturest  effort  of  morality  to  transcend  itself, 
these  virtues  do  not  lend  themselves  readily  to  historical 
derivation,  if  '  history '  is  to  mean  biology.  No  doubt  the 
biologist  can  point  to  plenty  of  instances  of  apparent 
self-devotion  occurring  in  the  animal  world — the  mother- 
bird  that  risks  her  life  for  her  offspring,  and  so  on.  But 
does  the  parallel  quite  hold  good — any  more  than  that  of 
the  savage,  or  indeed  the  civilised  man,  who  is  prepared 
to  die  fighting  for  home  and  country  ?  Does  such 
bravery,  save  in  rare  and  easily  distinguishable  cases, 
amount  to  '  devotion  to  principle  '  ?  It  is  by  the  lofty  and 
broad  ideality  attaching  to  them  as  motives,  rather  than 
by  any  particular  form  of  objective  manifestation,  that  the 
Transcendental  virtues  make  themselves  known.  Which 
essential  ideality  of  theirs  it  is  that  indicates  a  close 
connection  between  their  development  and  that  of  the 
higher  forms  of  Personal  virtue.  For  it  is  characteristic 
of  them  that,  whereas  they  cause  themselves  to  be  pursued 
almost  apart  from  considerations  of  personal  or  even 
national  survival,  they  nevertheless,  by  the  intense  subjec- 
tivity of  their  appeal  to  the  individual  consciousness,  tend 
to  suggest  a  quasi-personal  interest  and  value  that  is 
somehow  able  to  outlast  the  phenomenal  fact  of  death. 
"  Simply  the  miser  and  his  gold,"  says  the  evolutionary 


264  R.   R.   MARETT 

associationalist.  "  Your  '  martyr  of  conscience,'  just  like 
the  suicide  or  any  other  kind  of  madman,  is  a  victim  of 
the  idee  fixer — Perhaps.  But  this  is  at  all  events  to  put 
additional  burthen  on  the  theory  that  Nature  in  the  sense  of 
blind  Chance  stumbles  along  a  mean  of  coincidences,  and 
touches  passing  perfection  in  producing  and  preserving  the 
'  average  man.' 

§28.  The  International  virtues  may  be  taken  last  in 
order  on  the  ground  that  they  present  mixed  features.  Thus, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  principle  of  '  syncecism '  may  be 
invoked  in  favour  of  a  '  natural '  explanation  of  their 
development.  For,  undoubtedly,  it  furthers  group-survival 
that  the  hospes  should  under  certain  conditions  be 
recognised  in  the  Jiostis.  The  area  of  trade,  marriage, 
military  alliance,  and  so  forth,  being  widened,  the  tribe  is 
reinvigorated  by  the  introduction  of  fresh  blood  and  fresh 
ideas.  On  the  other  hand,  a  humanitarianism,  which 
contemplates  '  the  parliament  of  Man  '  as  an  ideal  pos- 
sibility, and  which,  moreover,  has  borne  actual  fruit  in  such 
an  act  as  the  abolition  of  slavery  throughout  Christendom, 
has  rather  the  appearance  of  a  spontaneous  creation  on 
the  part  of  our  moral  and  rational  nature.  The  alternative 
view  presumably  is  that,  in  so  far  as  humanitarianism  does 
not  '  assist  natural  selection '  by  serving  as  a  specious 
cloak  for  national  aggrandisement,  it  is  an  '  overflow,'  and 
a  dangerous  kind  of  '  overflow  '  ;it  that.  A  curious  notion 
this,  that  Nature  should  grow  ever  more  wild  and  freakish 
in  her  promptings  as  man  feels  himself  to  attain  more 
nearly  to  steadfastness  of  ideal  purpose  and  endeavour  ! 

§29.  And  now  to  sum  up  on  the  subject  of  the  value  of 
mere  Origin  as  a  standpoint  and  starting-point  of  ethical 
explanation. 

We  have  tried  to  look  at  matters  from  the  point  of 
view  of  Origin  (understanding,  however,  by  Origin,  not 
any  occult  fans  enianationis,  but  simply  past  history)  ; 
and  what  do  we  find  ?  Not  by  any  means  that  the 
moral  of  the  facts  is  unambiguous  ;  much  less  that  it 
is  unambiguously  in  favour  of  the  contentions  of  '  rational 
utilitarianism  '  —  or,  to  give  it  the  name  it  deserves, 


ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     265 

'  naturalistic  utilitarianism.'  For  there  was  borne  in  upon 
us  (by  the  help,  it  is  true,  of  some  very  violent  contrasts)  the 
suggestion  of  a  tendency  superinducing  itself  upon  a 
tendency — of  a  spiritual  process  growing  out  of  a  natural 
process,  and  yet  modifying,  and  even  transcending,  it.  It 
was  far  from  appearing  that  survival  (in  the  evolutionary 
sense  of  race-preservation)  is  the  end  that  wholly,  or  on 
the  whole,  has  weighed  consciously  with  the  successful 
type  of  man.  On  the  contrary,  it  took  some  special 
pleading  to  show  even  that  survival  was  the  general 
motive  presented  in  the  '  preliminary  virtues.'  Thus  the 
appearances  seemed  to  tell,  if  anything,  against  the  theory 
of  '  rational  utilitarianism,'  so  far  as  the  latter  might  be 
supposed  to  base  itself  on  experience  proper,  and,  in  its 
'  normative  '  capacity,  to  argue  from  a  genuinely  empirical 
'  is  to  a  no  less  empirical,  that  is,  experimental,  'ought.' 
It  was,  however,  fairly  obvious  all  along  that,  in  so  far  as 
it  pretended  to  rest  on  history,  '  rational  utilitarianism  '  was 
a  sham.  Its  appeal  was  never  to  veritable  history,  but  to 
something  conceived  to  lie  at  the  back  of  history,  namely, 
the  '  is  really  '  of  an  a  priori  metaphysical  naturalism — 
something,  therefore,  no  better,  but,  so  far  as  it  is  given  to 
masquerading,  worse,  than  the  confessedly  a  priori  '  ought 
really '  of  the  transcendentalist  intransigeant.  With 
a  priori  naturalism,  then,  considered  as  a  '  method  of 
origins  '  which  offers  to  provide  an  ethical  '  norm,'  let  us 
now  shortly  deal. 

Evolutionary  naturalism  as  a  metaphysical  theory  of 
experience  as  a  whole  undertakes  to  formulate  an  all- 
embracing  view  of  the  facts  of  life.  Needless  to  say, 
however,  it  finds  this  an  excessively  difficult  thing  to  do. 
A  certain  pair  of  disparates,  namely  consciousness  and 
biological  process,  it  is  quite  at  a  loss  to  reconcile.  Hence, 
unification  being  apparently  beyond  its  reach,  it  has  to 
resort  to  a  pis-aller.  It  attempts  simplification.  It 
pronounces  biological  process  the  '  reality  '  and  conscious- 
ness the  'appearance.'  Its  definition  of  life  is  that  it  is  a 
conditional  inheritability  of  bodily  functioning.  Its  essence 
consists  in  the  inheritability-  the  quality  it  has  of  allowing 


266  R.  R.   MARETT  v 

itself  to  be  handed  on  from  generation  to  generation. 
Thus  life  is  a  sort  of  Athenian  torch-race.  The  torch, 
which  is  consciousness  of  life,  is  a  wholly  decorative 
feature  of  the  ceremony.  For  it  cannot  afford  an  incentive 
to  the  runners.  Not  merely  has  it  no  value  in  itself.  It 
cannot  even  stand  to  them  as  the  symbol  of  something 
else  of  value  to  them — as  the  symbol  of  a  possible  prize 
to  be  won. 

Consciousness,  then,  being  as  such  no  conditioning 
element  in  the  process  it  '  appears  along  with,'  but  its 
empty  echo,  all  our  valuations,  seeing  that  they  are 
necessarily  '  for '  a  consciousness,  are  empty  echoes  too. 
Meanwhile  naturalism  has  projected  itself  beyond  con- 
sciousness. The  tale  runs  that  a  despairing  drill-sergeant 
once  bade  his  awkward  squad — "  fall  out  and  look  at 
themselves."  It  is  not  added  that  they  actually  did  so. 
Naturalism,  however,  has  performed  this  precise  feat. 
But  it  is  seemingly  more  easy  to  project  oneself  beyond 
consciousness  (fact/is  descensus  /)  than  from  beyond  to 
project  oneself  back.  To  pass  from  this  materialism  to 
the  formulation  of  an  ethical  norm — from  the  assertion 
that  all  valuations  are  superfluous  to  the  pronouncement 
that  one  kind  of  valuation  is,  notwithstanding,  better  than 
another — demands  of  one  the  kind  of  intellectual  back- 
somersault  that  is  apt  to  land  one  anywhere  and  nowhere 
at  once.  Not  thus,  however,  does  it  appear  to  naturalism. 
"  Though  we  be  but  echoes,"  it  says,  "  we  must  try  to  do 
the  echoing  properly.  Now  reality  is  persistence  in  time. 
Therefore  persistence  in  time  is  what  we  ought  really  to 
aim  at.  For  only  consider  !  It  is  really  that  which  we  are 
aiming  at  all  along — if  we  would  but  recognise  the  fact !  " 
— But  who  can  make  anything  of  such  a  rigmarole  ? 

§  30.  Naturalism,  however,  is  not  always  of  this  uncom- 
promising kind  (though  indeed  the  more  rigorous  form  of 
the  creed  is  popular  enough).  There  is  also  naturalism 
the  mere  '  point  of  view.'  Suppose,  then,  that  a  thinker 
of  '  scientific '  leanings  puts  his  case  thus.  l>  I  do  not 
pretend  to  unify.  I  am  content  fas  you  have  said)  to 
simplify.  I  merely  wish  to  sec  how  far  a  'biological 


ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     267 

view '  of  life  will  carry  me.  I  for  one  reckon  existence  as 
tfte  condition  of  all  good  things.  Well  (metaphorically, 
if  you  insist),  so  does  Nature.  But  Nature,  according  to 
biology  (which  no  doubt,  as  you  will  remind  me,  is 
simplifying  within  its  own  sphere  when  it  uses  function  as 
an  evaluatory  test),  has  its  '  sports,'  its  purposeless  by- 
products. Then  why  not  consciousness  too  ?  Trans- 
ferring my  biological  standard  to  Ethics,  I  ask  :  Are  these 
idealistic  excesses — "  exultations,  agonies  " — of  the  moral 
consciousness,  on  which  you  have  laid  so  much  stress, 
useful,  that  is,  favourable  to  the  prolongation  of  man's 
existence  on  earth  ?  If  they  positively  interfere  with 
this  result,  I  for  one  vote  that  they  go.  If  they  neither 
hinder  nor  help,  I  say  that  they  are  not  worth  the 
serious  attention  of  a  truly  practical  man.  If,  however, 
they  are  of  use,  biologically  speaking  as  it  were — ah  ! 
that  would  be  another  matter  altogether." 

To  which  let  us  reply :  "  As  tried  by  your  test  of 
'  function  '  (which,  whether  you  allow  it  or  not,  harks  back 
to  the  idea  of  reality  as  persistence  in  time),  surely  these 
excesses,  as  you  are  pleased  to  call  them,  of  the  moral 
consciousness  are  no  purposeless  accidents,  since  they  are 
not  eliminated  as  the  race  evolves,  in  the  way  that 
biological  '  sports  '  are  eliminated,  but  persist,  nay  flourish 
ever  the  more  wantonly  the  farther  man  proceeds  along 
the  path  of  secular  change." 

Now  doubtless  there  are  more  heroic  ways  in  which 
philosophers  have  sought  to  rid  themselves  of  such  a  foe. 
They  have,  for  instance,  refused  on  a  priori  grounds  to 
regard  goodness  as  in  any  way  conditional — whether  upon 
the  maintenance  of  the  bodily  life,  or  otherwise.  But  we 
have  chosen  to  meet  the  empiricist  on  his  own  '  level.' 
\Ve  have  appealed  to  his  own  standard  of  reality — per- 
sistence in  time.  If,  then,  it  turn  out  when  the  '  facts  '  are 
examined  that  certain  moral  sentiments  and  ideas,  to 
which  he  cannot  ascribe  any  particular  race- preserving 
function  (for  it  must  be  a  particular  ami  specific  function 
if  he  is  to  conform  to  the  requirements  of  biology;,  do 
nevertheless  refuse  to  be  eliminated,  but  persist  and  acquire 


268  R.   R.   MARETT  v 

strength  as  they  go,  will  he  not  admit  that  they  have  a 
prima  facie  empirical  validity  of  their  own  ?  And  suppose 
he  do,  will  not  he  go  a  step  farther  ? 

We  are  not  imputing  to  this  upholder  of  naturalism  in 
a  modified  form  any  definite  materialistic  creed.  We  do 
not  ask  him,  therefore,  to  reconsider  such  a  theory  as  that 
consciousness  is  an  echo,  an  epiphenomenon,  or  what  not, 
in  favour  of  the  view  that  consciousness  may  after  all  be 
capable  of  '  loading  the  dice ' — of  bringing  about  co- 
incidences in  a  way  that  the  mathematical  doctrine  of 
chances  cannot  warrant.  We  are  only  asking  him  to 
proceed  a  step  farther  at  the  same  empirical  'level'  that  was 
adopted  at  the  start.  He  is  supposed  to  have  allowed  on  the 
strength  of  the  historical  '  appearances '  that  a  prima  facie 
validity  of  their  own  attaches  to  certain  '  spiritual ' 
tendencies  as  distinguished  from  other  '  natural '  tendencies 
which  have  a  use  that  is  biologically  obvious.  Well,  at 
this  point — so  far  as  history  goes,  so  far  as  the  standpoint 
of  mere  Origin  serves  him — he  stops.  There  seems  to 
be,  historically  speaking,  so  little  to  choose  between  the 
validity  of  the  one,  and  the  validity  of  the  other,  set  of 
motives,  that  we  obtain  no  unambiguous  '  is '  with  which 
our  experimental  '  ought '  may  be  brought  to  conform. 
We  are  left  inquiring  :  Which  of  the  two  kinds  of  motive 
has,  empirically  and  for  us,  the  higher  validity  ?  Mere 
Origin,  it  seems,  cannot  tell  us.  But  is  there  no  supple- 
mentary test  ?  The  following,  then,  is  the  further  step 
which  we  ask  our  friend  of  '  scientific  '  leanings  to  take 
with  us  :  Will  he  stand  by  and  offer  us  his  criticisms 
whilst  we  consult  our  inner  sense  of  Validity  to  see 
whether  it  can  supply  us  with  a  moral  criterion  of  a  more 
nicely  discriminative  kind  than  mere  Origin  seems  able  to 
provide  ? 

VI.  VALIDITY  AS  AN   ETHICAL  STANDPOINT 

vj  3  i.  Our  farther  step,  it  has  been  agreed  with  the  up- 
holder of  naturalism  as  a  mere  point  of  view,  must  not  take 
us  beyond  the  empirical  'level.'  In  a  sense,  then,  \ve  can- 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     269 

not  leave  history.  We  may  have  done  with  '  back-history  ' 
—with  mere  Origin.  But  there  is  also  present  history— 
the  latest,  still  unfinished,  chapter  of  the  history  of  Man. 
Which  latest  chapter  may,  for  our  present  purpose,  be 
held  to  consist  of  psychological  matter,  and  that  mostly 
of  the  kind  acquired  by  '  introspection.'  Now  intro- 
spection, paradoxical  as  it  may  sound,  is  essentially  a 
historical  method.  The  introspective  psychologist  as  such 
undertakes  to  be  '  scientific.'  But  this  is  to  have  already 
transcended  the  bounds  of  a  purely  '  solipsistic '  interest  in 
self.  For  by  that  resolve  he  commits  himself  to  the  task 
of  observing  what  is  psychologically  common  to  himself 
and  other  persons.  He  is,  as  it  were,  chartered  by  himself 
and  them  to  describe  the  appearance  to  itself  of  a  typical 
mind  of  to-day  ;  and,  if  he  cannot  make  the  '  personal  equa- 
tion,"  it  is  simply  bad  introspection.  Meanwhile,  of  course, 
all  introspective  work  tends  to  wear  a  sort  of  '  solipsistic  ' 
colour  on  its  surface.  I  naturally  do  not  emphasise  the 
all-pervading  assumption  that  this  of  mine  is  also  yours. 
For  by  that  same  assumption  the  direct  proof  or  refutation 
of  my  assertions  lies  within  your  reach.  Why,  then,  should 
you  have  your  attention  distracted  from  the  facts  described, 
by  being  forced  to  hear  at  the  same  time  how  I  in  some 
more  or  less  indirect  fashion  have  come  to  believe  them 
to  be  the  common  property  of  our  minds  ? 

What  power,  then,  has  introspective  psychology  to 
assist  us  at  the  present  juncture?  It  will  be  remembered 
that  the  back-history  of  the  virtues  appeared  to  present 
us  with  two  classes  of  motive,  the  '  natural  '  and  the 
'  spiritual,'  both  having  a  certain  f>rima  facie  validity  of 
their  own,  even  as  tried  by  naturalistic  standards  ;  and 
that,  therefore,  we  felt  ourselves  driven  to  seek  for  some 
supplementary  test  that  might  yield  us  an  unambiguous 
'  ought,'  whenever  ''as  in  practice  must  constantly  occurj 
the  need  should  arise  for  us  to  set  one  kind  of  motive 
against  the  other,  and,  for  better  or  worse,  to  choose 
between  them.  In  search  of  which  test  we  have 
proceeded  from  '  back-history '  to  'present  history.' 
What,  then,  does  the  latter  tell  us? 


270  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

Surely  this — that,  as  empirical  matter  of  fact,  the 
moral  consciousness  of  the  normal  individual  of  to-day 
bids  him,  in  every  case  of  conflict  between  principles, 
to  choose  the  '  Jiigher ' ;  enables  him  immediately  to 
distinguish  in  a  general  ivay  between  '  spiritual '  and 
1  natural '  principles  ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  teaches  Jiim  to 
recognise  the  one  kind  as  in  itself  of  '  hig]ier '  validity 
than  the  other. 

Now  this,  I  would  maintain,  or  something  yielding  an 
analysis  approximately  the  same,1  is  introspectively  the 
fact.  Nor  have  I  any  objection  to  restating  the  matter 
from  a  point  of  view  more  acceptable  to  the  evolutionist. 
1  am  equally  ready  to  maintain  it  to  be  the  fact  that  the 
successful  individual  of  a  successful  race  to-day  normally 
feels  thus,  and,  what  is  more,  that  he  normally  tends  to 
'  act  up '  to  such  a  feeling."  I  would  even  bargain  with 
the  evolutionary  materialist  and  say  that,  if  he  will  admit 
that  these  intuitional  promptings  form  an  important  class 
of  '  appearances '  which  he  can  neither  incorporate  within 
his  system  of  utilitarian  ethics  nor  explain  away,  I  for 
my  part  am  willing  to  concede  as  a  bare  possibility  that 
the  successfulness  of  that  '  higher  life '  for  which  these 
promptings  pave  the  way  may  after  all  in  some  un- 
intelligible way  be  its  'biological  reason.'  But  I  insist, 
meanwhile,  that  the  moral  consciousness  gives  no  hint 
that  there  is,  or  could  be,  any  such  reason  at  the  back 
of  these  its  most  solemn  injunctions.  Nay  more,  I  would 
add  that,  if  any  hint  of  the  kind  intrude  itself  from 
some  extra-moral  region  of  thought,  a  shock  of  moral 
revolt  is  the  natural  result. 

§32.  Nor  does  introspective  psychology  merely  show 
us  that  these  intuitional  promptings  speak  the  master- 

1  The  reader  may  prefer  Wundt's  formulation  of  the  law  of  "  the  hierarchy  of 
moral  ends,"  which  runs  as  follows  :  "  When  norms  of  different  orders  contradict 
each  other,  that  one  is  to  be  preferred  which  serves  the  larger  end  :  social  ends 
come  before  individual  ends,  and  humanitarian  ends  before  social  ends" 
(/'rinciples  of  Morality  (trans.  Wash  burn),  p.  140). 

-  To  much  the  same  effect  a  recent  popular  work  (which,  however,  loses  sight 
of  the  'person'  in  the  member  of  society,  and  is  thus  restricted  to  taking  an 
'outside'  view  of  human  development)  describes  social  evolution  as  "  the 
progres>ive  subordination  of  the  present  and  the  individual  to  the  future  and  the 
infinite  "  (H.  Kidd,  Principles  of  Western  Civilisation,  p.  84). 


v          ORIGIN   AND   VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     271 

word  in  morality.  It  can  likewise  show  us  in  a  manner 
why — that  is,  how — this  is  so.  Let  us  revert  to  the  plan 
of  broadly  colligating  Validity  with  a  kind  of  feeling  and 
Origin  (in  the  sense  of  the  study  of  historical  cause  and 
effect)  with  a  kind  of  thought.  Considering  this  feeling 
and  this  thought  in  their  relation  to  future  action,  let  us 
name  them  respectively  '  foretaste  '  and  '  forecast.'  Why, 
then,  on  the  showing  of  introspection,  is  foretaste  rather 
than  forecast  supremely  effective  as  an  authoriser  of 
ethical  conduct  ? 

(a]  Well,  for  one  thing,  it  is  matter  of  direct  experi- 
ence that  will,  though  never  merely  strong,  or  the 
strongest,  feeling,  nevertheless  depends  on  strong  feeling 
as  its  proximate  condition.  Thinking,  on  the  other  hand, 
so  far  as  it  is  no  mere  echo  of  passion,  but  '  real'  thinking, 
that  is,  a  process  of  discursive  reasoning  governed  by  its 
own  laws,  is  '  cool.'  Thus  it  is  easy  to  see  how  '  the 
native  hue  of  resolution  '  may  be  '  sicklied  o'er  with  the 
pale  cast  of  thought.'  The  mind  cooled  down  by  thinking 
becomes,  for  the  nonce  at  any  rate,  and  permanently,  if 
it  dwell  too  long  in  the  world  of  mere  possibilities,  dis- 
qualified for  action.  Discursiveness  as  such  means 
diffusion  of  interest,  dissipation  and  distraction  of  attention. 
As  thought  moves  from  symbol  to  symbol,  each  of  these 
must  in  some  degree  be  felt.  Feeling,  however,  as  such 
involves  appetition.  Which  appetition,  though  it  partly 
helps  to  further  the  action  of  thinking,  is  partly  wasted  by 
the  way.  Hence  each  fresh  step  in  thought  levies  a  tax 
on  the  by  no  means  unlimited  fund  of  volitional  energy 
available  for  the  time  being.  Contrast  the  forcibleness  of 
intuition.  It  presents  an  object  that  is  distinct,  because 
relatively  discontinuous  with  its  psychical  background,  and 
capable  therefore  of  seizing  upon  the  whole  man.  It 
presents,  not  one  amongst  several  bare  possibilities,  but  a 
content  hardly  discrepant  with,  because  so  absolutely  com- 
plementary to  and  continuous  with,  mc-now — a  'to  be  ' 
which  even  now  almost  '  is,'  as  the  mental  panorama  is 
focussed  to  a  vivid  point  and  a  burst  of  sanguine  assurance 
heralds  the  consummating  act  of  will. 


272  R.   R.   MARETT  v 

(£)  Further,  let  us  note  what  forecast  as  such  must 
mean  for  us  as  beings  who  desire  to  will  reasonably,  that 
is,  so  as  to  have  the  theoretical  and  the  practical 
'  conscience '  satisfied  at  once.  A  mere  forecast,  even 
though  its  framing  involve  a  minimum  of  discursiveness, 
cannot,  if  taken  as  such,  yield  that  sense  of  logical 
cogency  which  in  the  case  of  an  abstract  proof  expresses 
itself  as  a  feeling  of  conviction  having  close  affinity  to  the 
feeling  of  moral  obligation.  So  long  as  we  are  but 
striving  to  analyse  the  immediate,  that  is,  any  object  so 
far  as  it  presents  itself  to  us  as  a  self-contained  whole 
having  no  '  other '  that  cannot  be  excluded  for  the  nonce 
by  the  very  act  of  mental  objectification,  we  are  subject 
to  the  feeling  of  logical  necessity — -of  complete,  if  but 
temporary,  satisfaction  with  our  thought.  In  a  case  where 
we  are  forecasting,  however,  we  are  trying  to  argue  from 
the  present  to  the  absent  —  from  the  known  to  the 
unknown.  We  are  'speculating,'  in  short,  in  the  business- 
man's sense  of  the  term.  Hence,  in  proportion  as  we 
are  aware  of  what  we  are  about,  we  cannot  but  be 
haunted  by  a  more  or  less  lively  presentiment  of  possible 
mistake  and  its  consequences.  It  is  not  wholly  or  mainly 
from  forecast,  therefore,  that  there  is  born  the  confidence 
which  can  restore  us  to  spiritual  unity  and  set  us  free 
to  '  identify  ourselves  '  with  the  object  of  desire. 

(c)  Lastly,  moral  forecast  as  moral  is  liable  to  a  special 
kind  of  ineffectiveness  with  which  personal  experience  is 
likely  to  have  acquainted  us.  The  material  out  of  which 
we  shape  a  moral  forecast  must  consist  in  part  of  facts 
relating  to  the  nature  of  our  own  emotional  leanings  and 
likings.  But  knowledge  'of  or  'about'  feelings  is 
different  from  knowing,  in  the  sense  of  experiencing, 
feeling  as  it  is  '  in  itself  Nay  more,  the  available 
mental  energy  being  at  any  moment  limited,  the  one 
kind  of  experience  is  bound,  temporarily  at  least,  to  over- 
ride and  outbid  the  latter.  The  sense  of  the  feeling  gives 
way  to  the  sense  of  the  logical  relations  of  the  concept 
whereby  the  feeling  is  represented.  Reflection  holding 
the  attention,  the  feeling  reflected  on  survives  as  but  the 


v          ORIGIN  AND  VALIDITY  IN   ETHICS     273 

bloodless  phantom  of  itself.  But  this  deadness  of  sensi- 
bility produced  in  us  by  self-analysis  is  utterly  out  of  place 
in  the  presence  of  a  call  to  action.  To  pass  to  the  state  of 
mind  wherein  we  are  able  to  make  the  feeling  integral  to 
and  effective  in  the  object  of  desire  requires  the  forcible 
revival  of  the  desiccated  image.  This,  however,  is  bound 
to  put  a  great  strain  on  the  imagination  ;  which  strain 
cannot  fail  to  communicate  itself  to  the  moral  economy 
as  a  whole.  How  fatal,  for  example,  it  usually  is  to 
reason  about  the  pleasures  likely  to  accrue  from  a  given 
course  of  action.  As  we  dwell  on  the  thought  of  them, 
they  grow  ever  paler  and  more  impalpable,  till  paralysing 
doubt  assails  us  as  to  their  worth — a  doubt  that  probably, 
could  we  but  know  it,  is  not  in  the  least  justified  by  the 
actual  condition  of  our  power  of  enjoyment.  How  direct 
and  infallible,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  suasion  of  moral 
foretaste.  When  intuition  is  allowed  the  upper  hand  in 
consciousness,  what  we  feel  at  one  moment  is  made  the 
object  of  endeavour  at  the  next,  and  never  a  chance  is 
given  to  doubt  and  dally  by  the  way. 

§  33-  "  Well  and  good,"  answers  the  'rational  utilitarian.' 
"  I  have  no  doubt  that  introspective  psychology  testifies 
in  some  such  way  as  you  have  described  to  a  certain 
ineffectiveness  of  moral  reflection  when  unsupported  by  a 
vivid  sense  of  what  it  feels  like  to  be  moral.  But  you 
prove  too  much.  The  blind  obedience  of  the  slave  to  an 
authority  he  is  incapable  of  understanding  exhibits  a 
'  sanguine  assurance '  not  a  whit  less  effective — to  say  the 
least  of  it — than  that  which  you  suppose  to  be  supremely 
authoritative  in  the  normal  moral  consciousness.  So  I 
ask  you  to  come  one  step  farther.  What  so  immediately 
effective  as  instinct?  I  am  ready  to  admit,  if  you  insist 
on  it,  that  the  application  of  the  terms  resulting  from  an 
analysis  of  human  action  to  the  kind  of  life  or  experience 
studied  by  the  biologist  is  more  or  less  metaphorical. 
But,  seek  as  you  will  to  expel  the  word  '  instinct '  from 
your  psychological  text-books,  the  fact  has  to  be  faced 
that  certain  deep-seated  forms  of  natural  trend  determine 
the  human  will  as  (I  contend)  no  mere  ideal  kind  of 

T 


274  R-  R-   MARETT  v 

moral  intuition  has  ever  succeeded  in  doing,  instilling 
absolute  confidence  by  focussing  the  attention  on  strong 
physical  feeling  and  on  that  alone.  Instinct,  then,  by 
the  showing  of  the  very  introspection  on  which  you  rely, 
is.  as  our  naturalistic  ethics  also  assumes,  the  pattern 
laid  up,  not  in  '  heaven,'  but  in  those  inmost  recesses  of 
our  nature  to  which  the  mere  consciousness  has  no  direct 
access,  whereto  moral  conviction  must  approximate  in 
proportion  as  it  is  sound.  The  natural  and  not  the  ideal 
feelings  just  because  they  have  more  of  the  true  intuitional 
flavour  about  them — more  forcibleness  and  fatality — have 
the  first  call  on  our  attention." 

To  which  the  champion  of  Validity  may  justly  reply  as 
follows.  "  Introspection  supports  history  in  testifying  to 
the  '  fact '  that  what  you  choose  to  call  the  instinctive 
'  will '  is  being  steadily  replaced,  as  civilisation  and 
education  advance,  by  a  will  of  equal  or  greater  energy 
that  rests  on  the  ideal  feelings.  It  is  useless  for  you  to 
try  to  put  back  the  hands  of  the  clock.  Inwardly  and 
outwardly  the  appearances  favour  the  view  that  spirit 
has  come  to  stay.  Construe  the  implications  of  this  '  fact ' 
as  you  will.  Say,  if  you  are  not  going  to  desert  the 
working  assumptions  of  evolutionism,  that  spirit  stays 
merely  because  it  pays — that  its  validity  consists,  not  in 
what  it  seems  to  be,  but  in  what  it  does.  But  at  least 
admit  as  an  empiricist  that  practically  and  for  us  it  has 
intrinsic  validity.  When  the  bent  of  progressive  man  is 
towards  attending  more  and  more  to  what  of  itself  seems 
to  claim  more  and  more  of  his  attention,  why  bid  him 
hand  himself  over  by  a  sort  of  spiritual  suicide,  by  an  act 
of  will-renouncing  will,  to  an  apparently  decaying  force,  the 
very  existence  of  which  'in' — we  cannot  rightly  say  'for' 
— him  is  not  a  matter  of  direct  consciousness  at  all  ? 
Naturalism  ?  Why,  it  is  rank  ^///naturalism." 

§34.  And  now  let  us  suppose  the  rational  utilitarian, 
unable  to  convince  us— and,  let  us  hope,  himself — that 
instinct  is  the  prototype  of  the  effective  moral  intuition  of 
to-day,  to  fall  back  on  his  second  line  of  defence.  "  Leav- 
ing instinct  out  of  the  question,"  he  proceeds,  "  what  of 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY  IN  ETHICS     275 

authority  ?  The  savage  is  at  the  mercy  of  custom. 
Trdvrwv  z/o/401?  /Sao-tXetk.  Well,  is  the  civilised  man  who 
trusts  to  his  intuitions  a  whit  more  self-determining  ? 
Is  not  '  I  will  my  station  and  its  duties '  a  survival  of 
barbarism  ?  To  put., foretaste  before  forecast  may  be  wise 
policy  for  the  masses — for  the  white  slave.  But  can 
intuition  afford  due  scope  for  the  exercise  of  a  reason- 
able will  ?  Utilitarianism,  rationality,  science — these  go 
together,  and  together  they  determine  human  progress. 
The  intuitionist  may  apply  to  himself  the  words  which 
the  immortal  Silver  addresses  to  his  fellow-conspirators  : 
'  We're  all  foc's'le  hands.  .  .  .  We  can  steer  a  course,  but 
who's  to  set  one  ?  That's  what  all  you  gentlemen  split 
on,  first  and  last.' " 

"  For  look  at  the  facts,"  he  continues.  "  See  what 
the  despotism  of  foretaste  involves  in  the  matter  of 
applied  Ethics.  What  aptitude  do  the  intuitionists  show 
for  tackling  concrete  problems  ?  Their  catalogue  of  par- 
ticular virtues  is  a  farrago  of  abstractions,  destitute  of  all 
arrangement  and  inner  consistency.  And  the  farrago 
boasts  an  immutable  nature.  It  descended  wholesale 
from  heaven  at  the  time  of  the  original  '  spiritual 
influx ' !  Or  at  best,  when  evolutionism  has  made 
the  fact  of  moral  progress  too  patent  to  be  any  longer 
denied,  some  quibbling  philosophy  of  '  type  '  and  '  stan- 
dard ' ]  is  requisitioned  to  explain  how  this  precious 
pantheon  of  sacred  forms  does  somehow  condescend  to 
adjust  itself  to  our  changing  needs  and  uses." 

u  And  all  this  comes  of  exalting  foretaste  at  the  expense 
of  forecast — of  dwelling  on  the  '  quality  '  of  moral  action 
and  leaving  the  '  reference  '  to  settle  itself.  Mere  feeling 
is  only  too  prone  to  attach  itself  to  this  or  that  ideal, 
irrespectively  of  its  bearing  on  the  rest.  Thus  it  is  that  a 
principle  puts  on  '  unconditionally  ' — say,  the  principle  of 
not  lying  to  a  murderer,  for  all  that  the  lie  might  save  the 
life  of  his  intended  victim.  But  the  psychologist  knows 
better  than  to  respect  the  '  man  of  one  idea,'  the  victim 
of  '  mental  obsession.'  He  is  typically  the  lunatic." 

1   The  allusion  is  to  Lt-cky's  History  <]/'  l-'.urspc*in  .Morals,  chap.  i. 


276  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

"  Meanwhile,  given  sound  political  and  social  institu- 
tions, controlled  by  intelligent  men  who  think  for  them- 
selves, it  will  be  for  the  best  that  intuitions,  promulgated 
by  authority,  should  govern  the  moral  life  of  the  unedu- 
cated. Since  these  cannot  discover  for  themselves  what 
is  right,  it  remains  that  they  should  adopt  the  surest  plan 
of  bringing  themselves  to  do  what  a  superior  wisdom 
decides  to  be  to  their  advantage.  For  them  let  principles  be 
as  '  unconditional '  as  you  please.  Here  is  the  opportunity 
for  intuitionism.  I  am  willing  to  concede — though 
unfortunately  your  inveterate  intuitionist  is  not  likely 
to  set  store  by  the  concession — that  reflection  '  on  a  sup- 
posed right  to  tell  lies  from  benevolent  motives '  is  not  for 
the  uneducated.  And,  since  the  uneducated  outnumber  the 
educated  by  ten  to  one,  I  allow  you  that  in  nine  cases  out  of 
ten  a  simple-minded  concentration  of  sentiment  on  the 
beauty  of  truthfulness  will  best  serve  the  cause  of  morality. 
For  feeling,  as  you  urge,  is  concentrative,  calculation 
dispersive.  The  victim  of  ethical  obsession,  as  compared 
with  the  puzzled  blockhead  who  labours  in  the  toils  of  a 
shillyshallying  casuistry,  is  in  the  less  parlous  plight. 
The  latter  utterly  fails  to  mobilise  such  moral  powers  as 
he  has.  The  former  at  all  events  acts — acts  immediately 
and  strongly,  though,  apart  from  a  wise  authority  in  the 
background,  not  circumspectly.  But  Ethics  proper  is  the 
concern  of  the  educated.  Show  me  if  you  can  that  an 
Ethics  which  puts  foretaste  before  forecast  is  natural  to 
the  educated  man  whose  highest  aspiration  it  is  to  be 
self-determining — to  exercise  a  reasonable  will." 

All  of  which  lies  open  to  a  retort  which,  if  it  be 
necessarily  somewhat  ad  hontinew,  is  at  all  events  hardly 
to  be  rebutted  from  the  side  of  mere  Origin.  "  Who  are 
you  that  speak  of  rationality  ?  You  have  to  admit  that  a 
certain  persistent  feature  of  morality— its  predominant 
ideality  of  foretaste — is  unaccountable  on  the  hypothesis 
that  whatever  fails  to  bear  on  survival  must  sooner  or 
later  be  eliminated.  '  By-product '  forsooth.  An  attempt, 
not  even  specious,  to  gloss  over  a  negation.  You 
pretend  to  rationalise  life,  nay  the  cosmic  process.  And 


v          ORIGIN  AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     277 

behold  the  plain  facts  about  morality  contradict  that 
boast  of  yours :  '  Grant  us  the  variations,  and  we  will 
explain  their  subsequent  history.'  '  Science '  you  call  it. 
It  is  good  science  to  give  yourself  up  wholeheartedly  to  a 
working  hypothesis  to  see  how  far  it  will  take  you.  But 
it  is  bad  science,  and  bad  manners  to  boot,  having 
planted  yourself  down  upon  what  you  are  pleased  to  call 
'  first  principles,'  to  seek  thence  to  shout  all  rival  methods 
down,  as  if  it  were  a  priori  demonstrable  that  there  must 
be  one  path,  and  one  path  only,  to  the  top  of  the 
mountain.  '  By-product '  indeed.  To  credit  an  inscrutable 
chance,  or,  if  you  will,  an  Unknowable  God,  with  whatever 
exceptions  your  so-called  '  laws  '  are  forced  to  tolerate  is 
an  artifice  worthy  of  the  '  age  of  miracles  '  ;  and  Hume,  as 
you  are  wont  to  assure  us,  has  shown  that  miracles 
are  nonsense." 

§  35.  So  much,  then,  for  the  slur  of  irrationality  which 
evolutionary  utilitarianism  would  cast  upon  the  theory 
that  those  ideals  of  the  moral  consciousness  which  seem 
the  highest  are  the  highest  for  us  as  moral  beings.  '  He 
that  is  without  sin,'  we  are  tempted  to  say,  '  let  him  first 
cast  a  stone.'  And,  as  for  the  allegation  that  intuitionism 
tends  to  divorce  foretaste  from  forecast,  the  reply  is  obvious, 
There  may  be  a  bad  kind  of  intuitionism  ;  but  that  is  not 
the  kind  we  are  now  defending.  Foretaste  and  forecast, 
according  to  the  view  we  are  concerned  to  uphold,  must 
severally  and  alike  be  allotted  their  natural  and  proper 
place  in  one  system  of  normative  Ethics  ;  only  the  place 
of  foretaste  is  naturally  and  properly  the  higher. 

Let  us  put  the  matter  in  a  slightly  different  way. 
Let  us,  in  order  as  far  as  possible  to  satisfy  the  rationalist, 
substitute  for  foretaste,  with  its  suggestion  of  something 
alien  to  thought,  namely  feeling,  its  logical  counterpart 
and  equivalent,  the  concept  of  a  self-justifying  moral  end 
or  norm.  Our  contention  may  now  be  restated  thus. 
Ethics  as  Ethics  is  restricted  to  the  normative  form.  Its 
supreme  principle  of  explanation  must  be  an  '  ought ' — or, 
if  you  will,  that  a  certain  '  ought '  is,  and  that  it  is,  and  can 
be,  for  us  nothing  else  but  an  'ought.'  "  Ethics,  then,"  you 


278  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

say,  "  finally  bases  itself  upon  an  appeal  to  authority." 
Yes,  but  not  in  your  sense  of  '  authority.'  The  authority 
in  question  is  not  external  to  the  moral  subject.  It  is  just 
his  personal  self — or  rather  that  part  of  himself  which 
appears  supreme  in  a  moral  context,  and  in  no  context 
of  experience  appears  anything  but  supreme  for  all  the 
purposes  of  morality. 

"  But  we  are  speaking  of  different  things,"  perhaps  you 
urge.  "  You  are  describing  Ethics  the  art.  I,  as  a 
rational  utilitarian,  am  seeking  to  establish  Ethics  as  a 
science."  The  answer  is  that  normative  Ethics  is  at  once 
art  and  science.  As  an  art  which  tries  to  produce 
morality  it  posits  the  general  object  of  moral  conviction, 
'  right  for  right's  sake,'  as  the  end  to  which  its  precepts 
must  finally  conduce.  As  a  science  which  tries  to  explain 
morality  it  refers  everything  back  to  this  same  object 
conceived  as  ultimate  self-explaining  matter  of  fact.  Thus 
the  conformity  of  the  practical  and  the  rational  sides  of 
the  moral  life  is  from  first  to  last  secured,  Both  stand  or 
fall  together.  Present  worth  and  ideal  worth,  Validity  as 
felt  and  actively  sought  after  and  Validity  as  contemplated 
by  reflection,  coincide  at  the  apex  of  a  system  which  finds 
its  architectonic  principle  in  the  intuition  of  moral  goodness 
as  good,  and  as  good  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  is 
itself. 

§36.  "  But,"  says  the  critic  of  Validity,  by  this  time  (let 
us  hope)  driven  to  his  last  ditch,  "  Ethics  after  all  has  its 
limits.  It  is  not  life.  Much  less  is  it  nature.  Suppose 
I  grant  you  that  Ethics  as  Ethics  is  essentially  normative. 
Is  not  normativeness  as  such,  however,  ex  analogia  Jiominis 
magis  quant  universit  A  certain  form  may  be  helpful, 
or  even  practically  indispensable,  when  you  are  '  con- 
structing '  out  of  a  certain  kind  of  appearance.  But 
what  of  the  kinds  of  appearance  in  relation  to  which 
it  does  not  help  ?  And,  above  all,  what  of  Reality  ? 
Though  the  microcosm  take  itself  ever  so  seriously, 
is  it  quite  prepared  to  absorb,  or  transcend,  the  macro- 
cosm ?  " 

Well,  as  to  life,  regarded  as  more  or  less  self-organised 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     279 

and  self-organisable  experience,  there  is  surely  no 
repudiation  of  the  normativeness  of  Ethics  to  be  feared 
from  this  quarter.  Taken  at  its  widest,  life  (in  this  sense) 
is  teleological  ;  and  the  theory  which  seeks  to  import 
method  into  the  work  of  self- organisation  cannot  but 
shape  itself  accordingly.  As  consciously  experiencing, 
that  is,  experimenting,  beings  we  take  the  validity  of  life 
for  granted.  Life  for  us  may  be  sweet  or  stern  ;  but, 
if  we  '  will  to  live,"  we  are  committed  to  the  postulate 
that,  despite  all  drawbacks,  life  on  the  whole  is  something 
good  and  sufficient  '  in  itself.'  Now,  unless  the  moral 
life  as  such  is  to  count  amongst  life's  drawbacks — a  view 
we  are  wont  to  contradict  by  shutting  up  the  persons 
who  hold  it  in  prison  or  the  asylum — it  must  partake 
in  the  teleological  character  of  the  more  comprehensive 
system.  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  place  assigned 
to  morals  in  such  a  system  by  the  common  opinion  is 
very  high.  Indeed,  we  have  already  had  occasion  to 
protest  against  a  prevalent  notion  which  would  actually 
lead  to  the  identification  of  Ethics  with  the  general 
science  and  art  of  conscious  living,  or  at  all  events  with 
that  group  of  allied  normative  disciplines  which  together 
set  before  themselves  the  ideal  of  '  the  higher  life.'  In 
which  ideal  the  very  aspiration  of  natural  science  towards 
'truth  for  truth's  sake'  constitutes  an  integral  element. 
If  the  'man  of  science'  is  not  aware  of  the  fundamental 
normativeness  of  his  intellectual  interest,  and  hence  of 
the  object  thereto  corresponding,  it  must  simply  be  that 
in  regard  to  the  higher  logic  he  is  as  Mons.  Jourdain  was 
in  regard  to  prose,  and  '  escapes  his  own  notice '  as  a 
'  constructor  '  of  experience. 

As  to  '  Nature '  and  the  universe,  there  would  seem 
to  be  prima  facie  reason  for  taking  a  teleological  view 
of  the  aggregate  of  '  mental '  and  '  material '  appearances, 
and  to  be  prima  facie  reason  against  so  doing.  As 
empiricists  we  do  not  pretend  to  the  possession  of  any 
a  priori  clue.  We  abstract  from  amongst  the  manifold 
appearances  one  kind  of  appearance  that  for  us  is, 
because  it  seems,  supremely  worthy  of  our  interest  and 


280  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

attention  ;  and  we  boldly  say — '  that  is  the  truth.'  The 
object  of  the  view  we  elect  to  hold  is  ideal  rather  than 
real  because  it  transcends  the  me-now — because  it  has 
yet  to  be  fully  realised  in  actual  experience,  our 
experience.  If,  then,  at  our  own  risk  we  accept  the 
responsibility  of  believing  that  this  is  both  for  us  and 
in  itself  predominantly  a  universe  in  which  spirit  is 
realising  itself,  and  realising  itself  in  part  through  us,  that 
is,  by  means  of,  and  in  some  sense  conditionally  on,  our 
voluntary  co-operation,  teleology  is  for  us  the  last  word 
in  Metaphysics  no  less  than  in  Ethics.  Or  if  not,  not. 
Meanwhile,  as  professed  experimentalists,  let  us  at  any 
rate  be  practical,  even  to  the  extent  of  theorising  to 
some  ultimately  practical  purpose.  If  Ethics  naturally 
takes  shape  round  a  notion  of  ideal  moral  goodness  as 
bearing  the  signs  of  readability  upon  its  face ;  if  Ethics, 
Logic,  Art,  Religion,  so  far  as  they  are  '  organised  interests  ' 
capable  of  standing  by  themselves,  display  each  a  similar 
fundamental  character  of  normativeness  ;  and  if  the 
normativeness  of  one  and  all  is  identical  in  so  far  as  it 
insists  on  the  pursuit  of  the  seeming  Highest  '  for  its  own 
pure  sake '  ;  then,  at  all  events  our  ideological,  anthro- 
pomorphic, personal,  rendering  of  the  universe  is  likely  to 
react  on  all  these  interests  with  advantage — to  con- 
tribute something  of  its  own  towards  a  general  heighten- 
ing and  deepening.  And  what  is  left  outside  ?  A 
few  stubborn  animal  passions,  a  dim  sense  of  fatal 
arbitrary  drivenness.  And  are  these  poor  fossils  and 
wrecks  of  time  to  serve,  to  the  exclusion  of  maturer 
forms  of  experience,  as  determinants  of  the  human  reason 
and  will?  Shall  they — 'must'  they — dictate  to  us  a 
philosophy  of  life  and  nature,  whereof  the  bare  theoretic 
contemplation  renders  our  whole  disposition  towards 
practice  less  strenuous,  less  intense,  less  susceptible  to 
the  hint  of  immense  possibilities  in  us  and  about  us  ? 
"  But  no,"  you  say.  "  The  effect  of  materialism  on 
practice  is  nothing  of  the  kind.  It  fires,  it  exalts 
abidingly." — Then  we  two  are  made  differently.  Let  us 
go  our  several  ways  in  peace.  Perhaps  after  all,  as  Uncle 


r         ORIGIN  AND  VALIDITY  IN  ETHICS     281 

Toby  said  to  the  fly,  '  there  is  room  in  the  world  alike 
for  me  and  thee.' 


VII.  FINAL  SUGGESTIONS  IN  FAVOUR  OF  A  COM- 
BINED  USE  OF  THE  T\VO  STANDPOINTS  IN 
EMPIRICAL  ETHICS 

§  37.  "And  what  of  synthesis?" — says  the  weary 
reader.  "  At  the  outset  you  looked  forward  to  a  relative 
unification  of  the  two  rival  principles  of  ethical  explanation. 
Nor  have  you  shown,  or  indeed  tried  to  show,  that 
mere  Validity  can  suffice  us  as  a  standpoint  any  more 
than  mere  Origin.  Besides,  the  study  of  origins  is  an 
established  industry  ;  and  established  industries  die  hard. 
Others  ere  now  have  made  it  pretty  hot  for  naturalism 
and  evolutionism.  But,  like  Brer  Terrapin  in  the  prairie 
fire,  they  display  a  wonderful  ability  to  '  sit  and  take 
it.'  Can  you  not  manage,  then,  to  allot  them  a  corner 
of  their  own  in  your  ethical  laboratory  ?  Is  there  no 
specific  function,  even  though  it  be  a  subordinate  one, 
for  them  to  fulfil  ?  " 

Well  frankly,  as  regards  naturalism,  there  can  be,  from 
our  point  of  view,  no  parleying  whatever  with  it.  As  a 
philosophy  it  is  contemptible.  As  a  mood  it  is  cheerless 
and  paralysing.  And  in  any  case  it  is  always,  in  preten- 
sion at  least,  a  metaphysic,  and  therefore  at  once  some- 
thing more  and  something  less  than  a  method  of  em- 
pirical Ethics. 

But,  though  naturalism  as  a  philosophy  cannot  by 
rights  yield  us  an  ethical  standpoint,  as  a  mood  it  can  to 
some  extent  do  this,  the  standpoint  it  favours  being  that 
of  a  narrow  and  sordid  opportunism.  Such  an  opportunism 
puts  the  objective  condition  '  this  is  what  I  can  do '  before 
the  subjective  condition  '  this  is  what  I  ought  to  do.'  Nay, 
its  tendency  is  to  neglect  the  latter  altogether  as  causally 
inoperative,  as  mere  '  echo.'  Thus  suppose  it  to  appear 
expedient  on  grounds  of  hygiene  that  extra  -  nuptial 
relations  between  the  sexes  should  be  permitted  in  times 
when  early  marriage  is  discouraged  by  custom,  or  when 


282  R.  R.   MARETT  v 

in  a  monogamous  society  one  sex  considerably  outnumbers 
the  other.  Opportunism  would  pay  no  heed  to  objections 
founded  on  simple  regard  for  the  principle  of  purity.  It 
assumes  that  the  normal  conscience  will  sooner  or  later, 
and  sooner  rather  than  later,  '  come  round.'  Or  suppose 
that  political  economy  seem  to  recommend  the  suppression 
of  certain  boucJics  inutiles,  say  the  quiet  putting  away  of 
the  mentally  afflicted  or  the  incurably  diseased.  Oppor- 
tunism would  be  for  carrying  out  the  change  in  the  teeth 
of  all  '  sentimental '  insistence  on  the  value  of  the 
individual  human  life  as  such.  According  to  this  theory, 
or  rather  mood — for  the  real  strength  of  naturalism 
depends,  not  on  its  logic,  but  on  the  success  of  its  appeal 
to  the  imagination  of  the  unimaginative — the  subjective 
'  necessity '  of  moral  principles  is  little  else  than  a  sham. 
And  what  is  true  of  them — so  it  is  urged — is  equally  true 
of  moral  principle  in  general.  Exaggeration  enters  into 
the  very  marrow  of  the  moral  sense.  By  asking  of  us 
what  otherwise — that  is  by  '  reason  '  and  '  experience  '- 
we  might  know  to  be  extravagant  and  impossible,  it  seeks 
to  cheat  us  into  a  more  strenuous  performance  of  our 
tasks.  But  '  noble  lies '  are  for  the  sightbound  self- 
hypnotising  masses.  The  rod  of  enlightened  authority 
and  empire  is  a  moral  scepticism  tempered  by  statistics. 

Well,  there  is  no  refuting  a  mood.  We  can  but  give 
it  the  cold  shoulder.  Meanwhile,  so  far  as  it  pretends  to 
base  itself  on  '  reason  '  and  '  experience,'  these,  if  the  fore- 
going argument  is  to  be  trusted,  bear  witness  to  precisely 
the  opposite  effect. 

§38.  With  evolutionism  however,  it  is  quite  otherwise. 
Useful  work  can  be  found  for  it  to  do.  If  it  eschew 
metaphysics,  and  attend  to  its  proper  business,  the 
historical  description  and  explanation  of  vital  function,  it 
is  a  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  moral  philosopher  only 
second  in  importance  to  the  commission  which  bids  him 
use  that  weapon  rightly. 

For  ultimately,  indeed,  that  is,  when  rationalised  to  its 
utmost,  Ethics,  we  have  decided,  must  be  normative.  It 
must  put  Validity  before  Origin,  foretaste  before  forecast. 


v          ORIGIN  AND  VALIDITY  IN   ETHICS     283 

A  general  standard  of  evaluation  is  given  by  the  moral 
consciousness  in  something  which  ethical  thought  can  but 
inadequately  designate  as  spirituality  of  personal  motive 
in  regard  to  social  conduct.  This  may  to  some  extent 
be  susceptible  of  interpretation  from  a  higher  '  level.' 
The  sympathetic  metaphysician  may  discern  therein  an 
'  aspect ' — a  specific  rendering — of  the  ideal  of  spiritual 
wholeness,  of  personal  self-realisation,  or  what  not. 
Ethically,  however,  it  is  just  what  it  is  to  the  moral 
intuition.  It  is  a  criterion  of  relative  excellence  which 
the  good  man  feelingly — or,  in  a  broad,  but  quite  legitimate, 
sense  of  the  word  '  knowledge,'  knowingly — has  and  can 
use.  Given  two  or  more  possible  courses  of  social  conduct 
involving  principles  that  appear  qualitatively  different,  he 
can  choose  with  certainty — moral  certainty  —  between 
them,  once  he  has  accepted  it  as  the  '  maxim  of  his  will '  : 
Attend  to  the  spiritualities,  and  the  temporalities  may  be. 
trusted  to  look  after  tliemselves. 

Alternative  courses  of  seemingly  possible  social  conduct 
must,  however,  be  given.  Our  ethical  imperatives  must 
always  be  relative  to  certain  preferables.  How,  then,  are 
such  alternatives  given  ?  By  forecast. 

Forecast  is  the  anticipation  of  a  certain  sort  of 
consequence.  Foretaste  as  y^rtaste  likewise  anticipates 
consequences  in  a  sense.  But  the  latter  are — that  is,  are 
apprehended  as  —  necessary  and  assured  consequences. 
They  are  consequences  in  that  they  have  yet  to  be  willed 
out  from  ideality  into  reality.  But  such  a  change,  viewed 
from  the  present  standpoint  of  the  agent,  can  affect  but 
the  degree,  and  not  the  kind,  of  the  experience  they 
embody.  Whether  thought  of  as  ideal,  or  as  realised, 
they  are  good  for  the  moral  subject  about  to  act  with 
one  and  the  same  quality  of  goodness.  Forecast,  on  the 
other  hand,  deals  with  what  for  the  agent  must  always 
appear  as  contingent  and  debatable  consequences — with 
this  or  that  means  as  opposed  to  the  end.  It  has  to 
guarantee  though  always  doubtfully  yet  as  best  it  can  the 
actual  possibility  of  the  ethically  preferable  course  of 
conduct,  before  mere  wish  can  ripen  into  resolve.  The 


284  R-  R-  MARETT  v 

good  man  must  always  seek  to  do  that  which,  in  the 
broadest  sense  of  the  phrase,  is  '  best  under  the  circum- 
stances.' An  Ethics  that  is  empirically  normative  cannot 
but  regard  this  as  the  only  intelligible  '  best.'  The 
general  subjective  necessity  'this  is  what  I  ought  to  do,' 
though  prior  in  the  logic  of  Ethics,  that  is,  prior  for  us  as 
beings  who  have  to  build  on  the  '  fact '  of  our  moral 
freedom,  can  have  neither  meaning  nor  function  apart 
from  the  general  objective  ratification  '  this  is  what  I  can 
do.'  To  forecast  which  latter  condition  as  rightly  as  may 
be  possible  constitutes  an  important  branch  of  the  work 
of  such  an  evolutionism  as  concerns  itself  with  the  com- 
parative history  of  man's  attempts  to  adapt  himself  to 
his  environment 

§39-  Meanwhile  the  present  essay  does  not  profess  to 
be  a  methodology  of  Ethics,  but  at  most  to  serve  in  some 
sort  as  an  introduction  thereto.  It  will  suffice,  therefore, 
if  we  indicate  quite  broadly  how  Validity  and  Origin, 
intuitionism  and  evolutionism,  as  distinct  principles  and 
methods  operating  in  conjunction,  are  to  import  logical 
system  into  Ethics  in  the  highest  attainable  degree. 

This,  then,  at  least  is  plain — that  Ethics  cannot  be 
organised  on  the  model  of  a  despot's  court,  the  '  ought ' 
sitting  enthroned  upon  a  dais,  whilst  below  and  respect- 
fully remote  stands  this  and  that  attendant  '  can.'  An 
Ethics  that  bases  itself  on  experience — as  we  under- 
stand experience  —  cannot  afford  to  show  the  slightest 
sympathy  with  the  dualistic  view  that  disjoins  the  a  priori 
from  the  a  posteriori.  On  the  contrary,  it  must  seek  to 
explain  and  justify  the  experience  of  the  normal  moral 
subject,  who  does  somehow  manage  to  combine  the  affirma- 
tion of  an  architectonic  end  with  a  due  consideration  for 
practicable  ways  and  means.  Thus  the  general  body  of 
ethical  doctrine  must  present  as  free  and  full  as  possible  a 
commingling  of  what  we  have  for  the  sake  of  clearness 
distinguished  as  the  '  subjective  '  and  '  objective  '  elements 
or  determinants.  If  '  ought '  and  '  can  '  are  not  to  be  made 
to  join  hands  and  work  together  for  a  common  object 
there  is  an  end  of  Ethics.  But  Ethics  is,  and  will  not  be 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     285 

ended,  so  long  as  there  are  thinkers  who  are  content  to 
try  to  make  the  best  of  what  they  have  got,  and  to 
observe  experience  from  within  instead  of  raising  futile 
questions  as  to  what  it  would  look  like  could  one  get 
outside. 

Now  the  strength  of  a  science  is  rightly  held  to  reside 
in  its  axiomata  media.  And  so  we  may  say  that  it  is  by 
its  power  of  firmly  establishing  its  secondary  principles 
that  the  soundness  of  ethical  method  is  to  be  tried  and 
tested.  How,  then,  are  '  ought '  and  '  can  ' — the  subjective 
and  objective  factors  —  to  co-operate  to  produce  such 
secondary  principles  ?  How,  for  instance,  is  a  catalogue 
raisonne  of  particular  virtues  to  be  drawn  up  that  shall 
without  inconsistency  present  them  as  embodiments  of 
the  end  and  yet  likewise  as  generalised  possibilities  of 
conduct  ? 

By  a  compromise,  we  answer — a  compromise  based 
on  a  clear  recognition  of  their  mutual  relativeness  and 
dependency  ;  though  even  so  the  best  of  the  bargain,  in 
the  shape  of  an  appreciable  balance  of  authoritativeness, 
cannot  but  fall  to  '  ought '  as  against  '  can  ' — to  Validity 
as  against  Origin.  Each  left  to  itself  would  initiate  and 
pursue  a  method  of  its  own,  Validity  an  analytic,  deduc- 
tive, and  Origin  a  comparative,  inductive,  method.  But 
each,  unsupported  and  uncontrolled  by  the  other,  is  bound, 
as  it  seems  at  least  to  the  empiricist,  to  stultify  itself  by 
onesidedness  and  extravagance,  Validity  by  engendering 
mere  quixotism,  and  Origin  mere  opportunism.  Hence, 
though  each  may  occupy  its  own  sanctum  in  the  ethical 
laboratory,  employing  groups  of  specialists  who  have  no 
time  to  interest  themselves  in  the  details  of  one  another's 
work,  the  true  and  scientific  account  of  the  laws  and 
principles  of  Ethics  must  always  take  the  form  of  a  joint 
report  subscribed  to  by  the  heads  of  both  departments. 
Nay,  it  were  obviously  best  that  the  minutest  specialist 
on  either  side,  in  order  to  avoid  becoming  the  slave — 
the  '  ideopath,'  so  to  speak — of  his  chosen  method,  should 
be  generally  acquainted  with  the  relations  of  his  working 
assumptions  to  those  of  the  other  branch,  that  is,  with 


286  R.  R.  MARETT  v 

the  methodology  of  Ethics  as  a  whole,  and  thus  be  able 
in  a  broad  way  to  make  the  '  professional  equation '  as  he 
goes. 

Analytic  Ethics  prevails  over  Comparative  Ethics 
simply  by  reason  of  its  greater  affirmativeness  both  as  art 
and  science.  And  its  right  to  be  the  more  affirmative  is 
grounded  on  the  '  fact '  that  for  the  actual  moral  subject  of 
to-day,  both  when  he  is  acting,  and  when  in  his  theoretical 
mood  he  asks  himself,  '  Is  this  really  and  truly  so  for  me 
as  a  typical  moral  subject  trying  to  understand  himself 
and  his  position,'  the  nature  of  moral  principle  is  more 
closely  bound  up  with  the  subjective,  '  intersubjective,' 
if  you  will,  since  typical,  but  still  subjective,  than  with 
the  objective,  element  therein  contained.  In  other  words, 
the  '  laws '  of  Ethics  ultimately  are,  in  their  theoretical  no 
less  than  in  their  practical  aspect,  authoritative  pro- 
nouncements rather  than  observed  uniformities.  Doubt- 
less the  conditions  which  determine  the  nature  of  morality 
as  a  product  are  phenomenally  of  two  kinds.  There 
are  determinations  from  within  morality  itself,  and  there 
are  determinations  from  without.  But  the  one  kind 
which  consists  in  the  evaluatory  selections  of  a  will  moved 
by  the  intuition  of  morality  as  worth  realising  in  itself 
and  for  itself  (that  is,  apart  from  any  consequence  save 
itself)  appears  to  Empirical  Psychology,  in  its  introspective 
and  historical  capacities  taken  together,  to  cause  more, 
and  to  explain  more,  than  the  other  kind,  which  is  com- 
posed of  whatever  influences  control  and  limit  the  action 
of  such  a  will  without  apparently  sharing  in  its  inner  guid- 
ing purpose.  These  latter  conditions  that  are  ethically 
'objective'  (in  the  sense  of 'external' — not,  of  course,  in 
the  metaphysical  sense  of  '  determinate,'  which  may  or 
may  not  be  an  adequate  expression  for  Nature  as  a  whole) 
have  doubtless  to  be  reckoned  with.  The  constructive 
affirmations  of  any  intuitionism  are  always  open  to 
criticism  on  the  score  of  objective  impracticability,  when 
such  impracticability  is  the  verdict  of  a  strong  induction. 
But  the  impracticabilities  of  morals  are  on  the  whole 
internal  rather  than  physical  or  physiological.  It  is  chiefly 


v          ORIGIN   AND  VALIDITY   IN   ETHICS     287 

because  we  do  not  will,  and  do  not  will  to  will,  the  seem- 
ing Highest  strongly  enough,  not  because  we  otherwise 
cannot,  that — as  a  matter  of  '  fact ' — our  characters  and 
conduct  are  found  morally  wanting.  Broadly  speaking 
in  regard  to  the  very  general  policies  of  action  repre- 
sented by  the  particular  virtues,  we  can,  and  mostly  do, 
realise  them  all  in  some  degree.  Ethically,  however,  the 
important  question  we  have  to  ask  ourselves  is  :  How 
can  we  do  so  in  the  highest  degree — that  is,  so  as  to 
give  each  virtue  that  place  in  the  system  of  our  life 
which  its  relative  value  warrants  ?  Thus  I  can  practice 
nationalism  and  I  can  practice  humanitarianism.  Prob- 
ably the  '  best  under  the  circumstances '  permits  of 
both.  But  which  for  the  general  purposes  of  my  moral 
self-realisation  is  to  count  for  more  ?  When  all  has  been 
said  on  both  sides,  it  is  to  Validity  rather  than  to  Origin 
—to  intuitionism  rather  than  to  evolutionary  utilitarianism 
— that  the  good  man  will  go  for  the  '  rational '  solution. 

§  40.  We  have  sought  to  keep  true  to  empiricism.  If 
our  conclusions  favour  a  reflective  and  critical  intuitionism, 
at  least  they  are  conclusions  that  profess  to  be  founded 
on  simple  matter  of  '  fact.'  The  ground  on  which  we 
take  our  stand  is  wholly  psychological.  We  allege  no 
more  than  a  psychological,  and  hence  phenomenological, 
'  ought.'  The  real  '  ought '  is  for  your  Will.  We  (at  a 
certain  personal  risk  of  our  own— for  example,  the  risk 
of  being  thought  illogical  or  foolish)  have  selected  a 
certain  view  of  moral  experience  because  it  seems  to  be 
for  man  (as  we  seem  to  know  him  both  in  ourselves  and 
otherwise)  supremely  worthy  of  attention  at  the  '  level ' 
of  Ethics.  You  must  attend  to  it  at  your  own  personal 
risk.  If,  by  attending  to  it  rather  than  to  anything  else 
in  part  materia,  you  reach  a  Better  (which  is  not 
necessarily  a  physical  or  biological  Better,  for  all  that 
it  turns  out  to  be  not  incompatible  with  physical  and 
biological  conditions  !),  then  what  the  pair  of  us  believe 
is  true  —  true,  at  any  rate,  until  something  even  truer 
emerges  from  the  '  visible  darkness '  that  is  both  in  us 
and  about  us. 


VI 

ART    AND    PERSONALITY1 
By  HENRY  STURT 

I.  SCOPE  AND  METHOD 

1.  Art  is  a  characteristic  function  of  personality. 

2.  Artistic  consciousness  should  be  studied  in  its  creative  rather   than   its 

receptive  form, 

3.  and  in  artists  that  are  familiar  rather  than  those  that  are  remote. 

II.   THE  SOLIDARITY  OK  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

4.  An  artist's  most  important  quality  is  enthusiasm, 

5.  which  must  be  directed  upon  objects  external  to  himself; 

6.  these  being  men,  or  things  with  human  qualities. 

7.  The  personal  element  is  traceable  even  in  (a)  architecture, 

8.  (6)  nature-painting, 

9.  and  (c)  music. 

10.  Though  art  implies  emotion,  it  is  not  to  be  denned  as  the  expression  of 

emotion,  either  self-regarding, 

11.  or  reflective. 

12.  Though  art  has  to  do  with  pleasure,  it  is  not  to  be  defined  as  a  form  of 

pleasure-seeking,  either  coarse  or  refined. 

13.  Art  is  not  self-reduplication,  though  it  is  self-expression. 

14.  Unselfish  appreciation  of  persons  is  the  mainspring  of  knowledge  and 

morality  also,  though  both  are  specifically  distinct  from  art  ; 

15.  it  unifies  our   higher  life  both  on  its  subjective  and  its  objective  side  ; 

and  is  a  strong  vital  experience. 

III.  THE  SEPARATENESS  OK  ART 

1 6.  Art  is  separate  from  morality  and  knowledge  formally 

17.  and  materially,  (a)  as  a  subjective  experience, 

1 8.  (/>)  in  regard  to  the  objects  for  which  it  is  felt,  which  are  persons. 

19.  The  separatent_-ss  of  art  is  obscured  by  the  transference  of  artistic  terms 

and  forms  to  what  is  outside  art. 

20.  Knowledge  and  morality  are  in  like  manner  separate. 

21.  It  is  not  a  vicious  circle  to  define  art  as  the  appreciation  of  art  in  others. 

22.  The  separateness  of  our  higher  interests  may  be  transcended. 


1   An  abridgement  of  an  earlier  draft  of  this  essay  is  printed  in  the  Proceeding.*, 
of  the  Aristotelian  Society,  N'.S.  vol.  i. 

28S 


vi  ART  AND  PERSONALITY  289 

IV.  ARTISTIC  VALUATION 

23.  The  questions  connected  with  artistic  valuation  are  (a)  what  is  valued, 

(b)  by  whom,  (c)  for  whom,  (d)  on  what  ground,  (e)  with  what  authority. 

24.  (a)  What  is  valued  is  the  work  as  manifesting  consciousness,  which  must 

be  of  the  artistic  kind. 

25.  (&)  It  is  the  artist,  primarily,  who  values  ;  secondarily,  the  critic. 

26.  (c)  It  is  the  artist,  primarily,  for  whom  the  work  has  value ;  but  it  is 

essential  that  he  should  wish  others  to  enjoy  it. 

27.  (d)  The  ground  of  the  valuation  is  an  immediate  personal  experience. 

28.  This  is  intuitionism,  but  the  intuition  it  affirms  (a)  is  not  merely  intel- 

lectual,  (/3)  is  connected  with  all  the  rest  of  our  personal  and  social 
life,  (y)  is  flexible  ; 

29.  and    its    method    is    empirical,   though    mere   empiricism   can   never  do 

justice  to  the  personal  affirmation  in  artistic  judgments. 

30.  (e)   Not    all   erroneous   artistic  valuations  have   a  definite    principle    to 

oppose  to  us  ; 

31.  but  the  need  of  a  superhuman  authority  to  back  the  true  valuation  is  felt 

(a)  in  combating  decadents  who  deny  the  value  of  life, 

32.  (j3)  in  fighting  for  artistic  progress. 

33.  I  agree  with  popular  opinion  in  affirming  the  right  of  private  judgment  ; 

34.  disagree  in  denying  the  accessibility  of  an  objective  criterion. 


I.  SCOPE  AND  METHOD 

§  i.  THOUGH  English  literature  is  rich  in  writings  on  art 
— Ruskin  alone  would  redeem  us  from  poverty — we  have 
not  much  that  treats  of  it  in  a  purely  speculative  way. 
Ruskin's  glowing  pages  are  full  of  artistic  truths,  truths  of 
wide  sweep  and  truths  of  finest  detail  ;  but  he  never  stood 
away  and  viewed  the  subject  as  a  whole  from  a  detached 
position.  He  gives  us  plenty  of  philosophic  material,  but 
no  philosophy  of  art. 

The  object  of  the  present  essay  is  to  study  artistic 
experience  philosophically  ;  above  all,  to  contribute  to  the 
knowledge  of  personality  by  considering  in  very  general 
terms  what  it  is  and  does  in  the  sphere  of  art.  Such  an 
investigation  is  in  any  case  worth  making,  and  especially 
so  if  we  believe  that  art  is  not  only  a  function,  but  a 
characteristic  function,  of  personality  ;  that  is,  a  function 
parallel  in  its  nature  to  the  functions  we  call  morality  and 
knowledge.  I  think  that  careful  study  would  convince  us 
that  art  is  not  a  by-path  or  anomalous  province  ;  but 
that  the  human  spirit  exhibits  the  unity  of  its  nature 
throughout  its  experiences,  artistic,  moral,  and  epistemonic. 

U 


29o  HENRY  STURT  vi 

Granted  this,  the  study  of  art  must  throw  great  light  upon 
the  other  functions.  Particularly  in  regard  to  ethics  it  is 
hardly  too  much  to  say  that  any  one  who  is  beset  by 
false  notions  about  art  will  never  interpret  moral 
experience  truly. 

This  is  how,  in  the  first  instance,  I  would  justify  my 
title  "  Art  and  Personality."  The  results  of  the  argument 
will  justify  it  further.  We  shall  see,  firstly,  that  the 
supreme  artistic  interest,  the  mainspring  of  artistic  cona- 
tion, is  an  affectionate  admiration  for  human  persons  ; 
secondly  that  art  illustrates  both  the  solidarity  and  the 
separateness  of  the  main  elements  of  our  personal  life  ; 
thirdly,  that  artistic  value  is,  for  us,  entirely  an  affirmation 
of  personal  experience.  Lastly,  the  title  of  the  essay  is 
meant  to  indicate  the  limitations  of  its  scope,  which 
neglects  the  social  and  historical  sides  of  art.  Another 
essay  on  "  Art  and  Society "  might  well  be  written 
without  overlapping  the  present  one.  And  a  glance  of 
the  chapter-headings  of  Dr.  Hirn's  excellent  Origins  of 
Art  will  show  how  wide  a  field  of  history  I  leave 
untouched.  In  art-philosophy,  as  in  ethics,  we  can  learn 
much  by  studying  individuals  as  we  meet  them  in  daily 
life,  abstracting  temporarily  from  their  historical  ante- 
cedents and  social  medium. 

§  2.  Of  the  persons  who  may  distinctively  be  termed 
artistic  there  are  two  classes,  artists  and  connoisseurs. 
Which  of  the  two  shall  we  elect  to  study  as  the  type 
of  artistic  experience?  I  think  undoubtedly  the  former. 
Here,  at  least,  I  have  the  support  of  Dr.  Bosanquet,  who 
argues  that  in  such  theorising  we  should  take  the  attitude 
of  "  the  mind  of  the  maker." ]  Were  we  discussing 
science  instead  of  art  there  would  hardly  be  need  of 
arguments  to  establish  this  point.  What  should  we  think 
of  the  theorist  who  took  as  his  type  of  the  scientific  mind, 
not  the  explorer  and  creator,  but  the  docile  student ;  or 
quoted  as  the  typical  philosopher,  not  Aristotle,  but 
Simplicius  ?  In  morals  the  point  becomes  so  obvious  that 
it  needs  an  effort  to  realise  the  force  of  the  parallel. 

1    "  On  the  Nature  of  /Esthetic  Emotion,"  in  Mind  for  April,  1894,  p.  155. 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  291 

There  the  connoisseur  is  one  who  says  "  video  meliora 
proboque "  ;  but  such  is  not  the  man  on  whom  we  base 
our  theory  of  virtue. 

We  get  the  same  result  from  introspection.  That 
definite  and  well-known  experience  which  we  call  artistic 
comes  to  us  more  fully  in  making  a  work  of  our  own  than 
in  contemplating  another  man's.  It  would  be  strange 
were  the  case  otherwise.  Through  all  the  range  of  our 
life  our  feelings  are  keenest  when  we  are  actualising  them. 
Aristotle  was  right  with  his  evepyeia  eo-fiev — "  it  is  in  the 
exercise  of  our  faculties  that  our  existence  lies."  Keenly 
as  we  may  feel  in  looking  passively  at  a  sunset,  keenly  as 
we  may  enjoy  the  sunset  in  the  "  Fighting  T£meraire," 
we  might  be  sure  that  if  we  painted  the  sunset  we  should 
have  a  feeling  of  the  distinctively  artistic  kind  far  more 
rich  and  keen. 

Yet,  in  ordinary  discussions,  the  standpoint  assumed 
is  almost  always  that  of  the  receptive  side  ;  and  this 
accounts  for  nine-tenths  of  the  mistakes  in  art-philosophy. 
One  reason  for  assuming  this  standpoint  is  obvious. 
Connoisseurs  are  many  and  artists  are  few,  and  there 
is  always  a  temptation  to  confuse  the  "  average "  with 
the  "  typical."  But  there  is  perhaps  a  more  philosophical 
reason  which  we  shall  appreciate  if  we  consider  how  the 
experience  of  the  looker-on  compares  with  that  of  the 
artist.  The  former  is,  so  to  speak,  a  creator  at  second- 
hand. Turner,  in  painting  the  Temeraire,  had  the 
creative  experience  at  first-hand  ;  the  intelligent  admirer, 
on  the  suggestion  of  the  picture,  goes  through  part  of 
what  the  painter  felt.  But,  though  the  spectator's  feeling 
is  feebler,  it  is  purer.  He  is  not  troubled,  like  the  artist, 
by  difficulties  of  technique.  The  popular  preference  for 
the  spectator's  standpoint  is  instructive,  if  it  shows  us 
that,  to  get  to  the  essentials  of  art,  we  must  think  away 
the  merely  technical  element  in  the  artist's  experience. 

The  mention  of  technique  leads  on  to  a  further 
definition  of  my  standpoint.  It  will  have  been  noticed 
that  I  have  spoken  more  of  the  artist's  mind  than  of  the 
work  which  he  produces.  It  is  mental  facts  that  will 


292  HENRY  STURT  vi 

mainly  be  kept  in  view  in  the  following  pages.  The 
"  art "  which  I  propose  to  study  in  connection  with 
personality  is  the  direct  expression  of  the  consciousness 
of  the  artist. 

§  3.  Of  course  it  is  in  his  works  principally  that  the 
artist's  consciousness  is  revealed.  But  the  observer  must 
use  all  helps  to  get  at  the  underlying  consciousness.  He 
must  attend  to  what  artists  say  about  their  work,  and  to 
what  they  like  or  dislike  in  others.  And  tfius,  for  his 
investigations,  no  artists  are  so  useful  as  those  of  whom 
he  can  get  personal  knowledge.  If  he  does  not  under- 
stand the  artists  of  his  own  day,  the  painters  who  paint 
familiar  beauties,  the  poets  who  treat  the  current  themes 
of  vital  interest,  the  musicians  who  interpret  the  emotions 
of  contemporary  society,  we  shall  not  get  much  help  from 
artists  of  a  different  age  and  clime. 

Neglect  of  these  considerations  accounts  largely  for 
the  unreality  of  so  many  cultured  discussions  on  art. 
An  anecdote  will  illustrate  my  meaning.  Not  long  ago 
I  heard  a  distinguished  professor,  who  has  never  done 
anything  manual  in  his  life,  begin  an  art  discussion  with 
the  words  "  When  I  look  at  a  Greek  statue —  — ."  This 
little  phrase  approves  by  implication  many  errors  that 
we  should  shun.  "  I  look  "  implies  the  receptive  attitude  ; 
that  point  has  been  dealt  with.  "  Greek  "  is  our  present 
concern.  How  can  an  Englishman  expect  to  reach  the 
truth  about  art  by  beginning  with  the  artistic  conscious- 
ness of  Greeks  twenty-five  centuries  away  ?  "  Statue  " 
is  hardly  less  mistaken.  Statuary  is  an  art-form  which 
does  not  appeal  strongly  to  our  age  and  country.  So  long 
as  our  climate  and  habits  remain  what  they  are,  it  will 
never  emerge  from  its  secondary  position.  The  Greeks, 
on  the  other  hand,  were  always  practising  naked  in  the 
palaestra.  Their  work  shows  that  they  cared  as  much 
for  the  figure  as  the  face.  But  to  Englishmen  the  face 
is  nearly  everything,  except  to  the  few  who  have  studied 
from  the  nude,  which  my  professor  had  certainly  never 
done.  So,  instead  of  his  conventional  classicality,  the 
professor  should  have  said  :  "  When  an  English  sculptor 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  293 

models    a    face."        Even    then    he    was    wrong    in    not 
beginning  with  the  art  he  practised,  literature. 


II.  THE  SOLIDARITY  OF  THE  HIGHER  LIFE 

§  4.  Of  all  the  qualities  that  go  to  make  a  true  artist, 
the  most  important  is  enthusiasm.  The  word  itself  has 
had  a  chequered  history.  We  all  know  of  the  early 
Victorian  archbishop  who  addressed  a  band  of  outgoing 
missionaries  with  the  words,  "Above  all,  avoid  enthusiasm." 
He  was  doubtless  using  the  word  in  its  older  sense  of 
that  neurotic  exaltation,  so  notorious  in  later  days  among 
American  revivalists,1  which  is  often  the  dangerous 
enemy  of  reason  and  morality.  But  the  enthusiasm  I 
mean  is  just  that  rational  fervour  which  is  essential  to 
the  most  perfect  forms  of  intellectual  and  moral 
experience. 

The  repressing  and  ignoring  of  enthusiasm  was  the 
worst  feature  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Its  recognition 
is  the  most  hopeful  sign  for  the  century  just  begun. 
"  Enthusiastic "  is  now  almost  a  customary  epithet  for 
artists,  like  "  gallant "  for  soldiers.  Even  the  ordinary 
Britisher  knows  that  without  enthusiasm,  or  unselfish 
devotion  to  art  for  its  own  beauty,  no  artist,  however 
skilful,  can  be  noble  ;  and  that  with  it  the  least  skilful 
can  never  be  contemptible.  The  man  of  skill  and  no 
devotion  he  despises  as  a  manufacturer. 

Using,  as  I  do,  enthusiasm  in  quite  a  common  sense, 
I  have  no  fear  that  it  will  be  seriously  misunderstood. 
But  it  is  worth  while  to  make  its  meaning  plainer  by 
comparing  it  with  some  kindred  terms.  '  Admiration ' 
and  '  unselfish  appreciation '  do  not  express  the  active 
working  fervour  of  the  enthusiast.  Admiration,  more- 
over, is  too  much  limited  to  our  feeling  for  men  ;  it 
would  hardly  express  our  feeling  for  a  cause.  '  Devotion  ' 
is  nearly  synonymous  ;  but  it  has  religious  or,  at  least, 
exalted  associations  which  are  not  relevant  to  our 

1   Cf.    B.   Sidis,    Psychology   of  Suggestion,    chap,   xxxiii.,    entitled    "American 
Menta".  Epidemics. " 


294  HENRY  STURT  vi 

present  meaning.  But  all  these  terms  share  with 
enthusiasm  the  connotation  of  a  self-forgetful  absorption 
in  a  pursuit  which  is  valued,  not  because  it  brings 
pleasure  or  profit  or  renown,  but  because  it  is  intrinsically 
precious  and  noble. 

The  quality  of  enthusiasm  belongs  not  to  art  only,  but 
also  to  the  other  activities,  knowledge  and  morality,  which 
go  with  art  to  make  up  our  higher  life.  The  sphere  of 
the  higher  life  might  in  fact  be  described  as  that  in  which 
enthusiasm  is  possible.  A  cool  propriety,  a  cool  curiosity 
never  sufficed  to  make  a  saint  or  scientific  genius.  Art, 
knowledge,  and  morality  have  each  of  them  intrinsic  value, 
a  value  which,  as  we  shall  see  in  the  last  section  of  this 
essay,  is  vouched  for,  primarily,  by  the  affirmation  of  the 
personal  self.  Enthusiasm  is  the  affirmation  of  intrinsic 
values  on  its  passionate  side. 

§  5.  We  have  so  far,  by  an  unreal  though  necessary 
abstraction,  considered  enthusiasm  subjectively,  or  as  an 
affection  of  the  acting  self.  None  the  less,  it  is  essential 
to  enthusiasm  that  it  should  be  directed  upon  an  object 
outside  the  acting  self.  It  is  possible,  indeed  frequent, 
for  a  man  to  view  himself  with  pride,  but  not  with 
enthusiasm.  In  morals  a  man  cannot  turn  from  thinking 
admiringly  of  another's  virtue  to  thinking  of  his  own  with 
the  same  admiration.  The  transition  from  the  not-self  to 
the  self  involves  an  essential  change  of  feeling.  So  it  is 
with  the  artistic  form  of  enthusiasm.  Art  is  the  effort 
to  represent  objects  which  the  artist  thinks  beautiful,  or, 
at  least,  deserving  of  sympathetic  interest.  But  they 
must  be  objects  which  are  not  merely  part  of  the  agent's 
own  self.  This  would  probably  be  admitted  as  a  rule, 
but  there  are  cases  on  the  boundary  which  might  cause 
difficulty.  In  literature  there  is  the  case  of  autobiography. 
Can  a  man  relate  his  own  adventures  and  delineate  his 
own  character  with  the  same  artistic  spirit  that  he  can 
devote  to  another  man's  ?  I  think  not.  An  autobiography 
may  be  excellent  as  a  historical  record  or  as  a  human 
document,  like  Benvenuto  Cellini's  ;  but  it  is  a  mistake 
for  the  writer  to  try  to  make  it  a  work  of  art,  except  in 


VI  ART  AND  PERSONALITY  295 

the  subordinate  sense  of  taking  pains  with  the  arrangement 
and  style.  Compare  Thackeray's  Barry  Lyndon  with  a 
book  which  perhaps  suggested  to  him  the  idea  of  a 
romance  of  scoundrelism,  Casanova's  Memoirs.  One  is 
art,  the  other  egoism. 

In  painting  there  is  the  similar  case  of  the  artist  who 
paints  his  own  portrait.  Here  an  objective  attitude  is 
less  difficult  because  the  matter  represented  is  not  so 
central  to  the  acting  self.  It  is  possible  for  a  man  to  be 
interested  in  his  physical  appearance,  not  because  it  is  his, 
but  because  it  is  human.  Still,  there  are  many  dangers 
in  self-portraiture.  In  Florence  there  is  a  famous  gallery 
reserved  for  portraits  of  artists  by  their  own  hands  ;  and 
the  most  successful  are  those  in  which  the  artists  have 
looked  at  their  own  faces  in  a  detached  impersonal  way 
as  interesting  human  lineaments,  not  unsuggestive  of 
human  peculiarities  and  failings. 

§  6.  To  learn  what  are  the  objects  of  artistic  interest 
we  must  go  to  the  arts  ;  and,  to  begin  with,  not  to  the 
most  rudimentary,  but  to  the  most  perfect  of  them.  This, 
men  have  agreed,  is  poetry.  For  there  is  most  in  it  on 
the  whole,  and  to  excel  requires  the  highest  powers.  We 
have  only  to  take  down  from  our  shelves  any  of  the  great 
poets,  from  Homer  to  Tennyson,  to  assure  ourselves  that 
their  supreme  interest  is  Man.  Turn  over  their  pages 
and  you  will  find  that  human  strength  and  beauty,  love 
and  hope,  pain  and  sorrow,  effort  and  adventure,  art  and 
skill  are  the  substance  of  their  song.  In  the  preface  to 
Sordello  Browning  says,  "  My  stress  lay  on  the  incidents 
in  the  development  of  a  soul  ;  little  else  is  worth  study." 
On  the  whole,  that  is  true. 

A  sympathetic  interest  in  men  is  the  mainspring  even 
of  that  rare  and  difficult  form,  the  poetry  of  pessimism. 
Pure  pessimism,  which  is  the  same  as  pure  misanthropy, 
is  seldom  met  with  and  is  artistically  worthless.  The 
only  sort  that  is  tolerable  gives  the  impression  that  man 
is  a  creature  possessing  many  noble  qualities,  but  basely 
tormented  by  cruel  circumstance. 

So   with    the    satirist.       Juvenal  and   Swift  would    be 


296  HENRY  STURT  vi 

execrable  if  we  did  not  feel  that  their  fury  against  men 
is  really  a  fury  that  men  are  not  better.  It  is  a  cry  for 
reform  cloked  as  a  curse. 

Nature,  animate  and  inanimate,  claims  the  poet's 
interest  in  a  less  degree.  In  many  cases,  he  cares  for 
it  only  as  a  background  to  human  life.  Where  Nature 
is  an  object  of  independent  interest  it  is  viewed,  as  it 
were,  sub  specie  humanitatis.  Even  in  the  nature  that 
is  farthest  from  us,  the  poet  sees  human  powers  and 
attributes  ;  grace  in  flowers,  majesty  in  mountains,  purity 
in  air  and  sky. 

§  7.  There  are  some  branches  of  art  in  which  my 
thesis  that  artistic  interest  is  interest  in  psychic  life, 
human  or  quasi -human,  may  be  sustained  with  com- 
parative ease.  These  are  poetry,  portrait -painting,  and 
portrait -sculpture.  They  may  therefore  be  left  aside, 
and  we  will  turn  to  other  cases  where,  for  various  reasons, 
the  principle  is  less  obvious.  Such  a  case  is  architecture, 
the  interest  of  which  I  will  try  to  analyse  in  detail.  It  is 
a  case  where  we  are  forced  to  take  the  spectator's  stand- 
point rather  than  the  artist's.  For  there  is  usually  a  good 
deal  more  artistic  interest  in  a  noble  building  than  its 
builder  put  there. 

A  considerable  piece  of  architecture,  one  of  our 
cathedrals  for  example,  stands  midway  between  the 
things  of  artistic  value  that  are  purely  natural  and  those 
which,  like  a  painting,  are  purely  artificial.  We  never 
forget  that  human  hands  built  it  ;  and  yet  from  its  huge 
bulk,  its  assimilation  by  weathering  to  the  visible  quality 
of  rock  and  cliff,  and  the  dependence  of  its  structural 
permanency  on  the  crude  natural  strength  and  weight 
of  stone  and  timber,  it  takes  a  place  in  our  thought 
among  the  main  features  of  its  landscape.  Thus  its 
interest  has  many  sides,  which  it  is  worth  while  to 
distinguish  for  the  sake  of  showing  how  they  are  related 
to  humanity. 

First,  there  is  the  interest  of  human  association. 
English  people  are  worshipping  in  the  building  ;  great  and 
good  men  of  the  past  have  served  and  worshipped  there. 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  297 

Secondly,  there  is  the  interest  of  workmanship.  The 
architect  and  sculptor  have  put  their  thought  into  its 
planning  and  decoration.  These  two  interests  are  directly 
personal. 

Thirdly,  there  is  the  interest  of  nationality.  The 
building  informs  us  not  only  of  the  craftsman's  conscious- 
ness, but  of  the  nation's.  The  religious  and  secular 
ideals  of  medieval  England,  its  hopes  and  fears,  its  view 
of  Nature  and  of  Man,  its  outlook  upon  the  time  and  its 
conceptions  of  a  future  life  were  expressed  more 
adequately  in  churches  than  in  any  other  form. 

Fourthly,  there  is  the  interest  of  organic  character. 
Let  us  consider  what  we  mean  by  that  hard -worked 
philosophic  term  "  organism."  In  part  we  only  mean 
that  the  thing  denoted  has  life,  whatever  the  qualities 
of  life  may  be.  This  meaning,  obviously,  is  not  in 
question  here.  But  also  we  mean  that  the  thing 
possesses  a  definite  meaning  and  purpose  which  pervades 
the  parts,  so  that  they  are  instrumental  or  "  organic  "  to 
it.  The  more  thorough  the  pervasion  of  the  meaning, 
and  the  more  elaborately  the  parts  are  shaped  to  express 
it,  the  more  organic  the  organism.  To  us  the  human 
body,  the  instrument  of  personal  life,  is  the  supreme 
organism,  because  the  meaning  which  it  subserves  is  to 
us  supreme.  And  thus  we  tend  to  view  as  quasi-personal 
every  totality  which  subserves  meaning  in  a  way 
analogous  to  the  human  body.  So  it  is  with  the 
cathedral ;  and  with  every  building  that  has  a  worthy 
meaning.  Every  material  structure  which  is  an  object 
of  our  unselfish  interest,  we  tend  to  regard  as  possessing 
an  almost  human  individuality.  That  is  why  the  sailor 
speaks  of  his  ship  as  "  she."  That  also  is  why  we  often 
resent  alterations  in  a  favourite  building  which  a  stranger 
would  recognise  as  improvements. 

Fifthly,  there  is  the  interest  of  the  vitality  of  the 
parts.  To  a  sympathetic  vision  the  stones  and  beams 
of  the  cathedral  are  severally  instinct  with  life.  The 
strong  straight  pillars  sustain  the  upper  fabric  with  an  air 
of  well-girt  purpose  ;  the  arches  spring  ;  the  timbers  knit 


298  HENRY  STURT 


VI 


the  roof ;  the  buttresses  thrust  sturdily  against  the 
pressure  of  the  roof;  the  spire  soars  into  the  sky.  The 
eye  instinctively  interprets  these  dead  mechanic  things 
in  terms  of  living  power  ;  and  those  forms  are  grateful 
to  it  which  assist  its  instinctive  interpretation.1 

The  foregoing  enumeration  of  aspects  may  not  be 
exhaustive.  That  is  immaterial.  Distinction  of  the 
aspects  of  the  artistic  interest  is  less  important  than 
apprehension  of  its  unifying  principle,  which  is  interest 
in  a  vital  whole.  The  fourth  and  fifth  aspects,  which 
imply  each  other,  are  the  fundamental  ones.  The  two 
first  are  but  enhancements.  They  cannot  be  mechanically 
added  to  the  core  of  interest,  but  must  belong  organically. 
Take  the  first — association.  The  fact  that  Napoleon  had 
worshipped,  or  professed  to  worship,  in  a  building  could 
lend  it  but  an  adventitious  interest.  To  enhance  its 
artistic  value,  we  should  need  the  memory  of  some 
God-fearing  warrior,  like  Cromwell. 

§  8.  I  have  now  to  establish  my  position  in  regard 
to  nature-painting,  including  under  that  term  the  painting 
of  animals,  still-life,  and  landscape.  In  regard  to  the  first 
of  these,  the  matter  needs  little  argument.  It  is  easy 
to  see  that  what  we  value  in  the  representation  of 
animals  are  excellences  akin  to  human.  The  danger  is 
that  we  fall  into  the  opposite  error  and  suppose  that  we 
care  for  animals,  not  as  beasts,  but  as  men  in  beasts' 
clothing.  Landseer  illustrates  both  the  better  and  the 
worse  possibilities  of  the  animal -painter.  Sometimes 
his  dogs  are  mere  human  caricatures.  His  best  picture, 
the  Shepherds  Chief  Mourner,  exemplifies  the  two  con- 
ditions of  success.  It  is  full  of  the  purest  appreciation 
of  dog-nature  as  such  ;  and  it  teaches  us  how  to  admire 
in  beasts  a  virtue  akin  to  the  highest  in  man. 

Still -life  and  landscape  go  very  closely  together,  so 
that  nearly  all  that  applies  to  the  latter  applies  to  the 
former.  As  landscape  is  far  the  more  important,  I  reserve 
the  main  argument  for  it.  There  is  only  one  element 

1  Cf.    the  excellent  analysis  of  the  artistic  quality  of  a  Doric  column  by  T. 
Lipps,  Raumiisthttik,  chaps,  i.  and  ii. 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  299 

which  is  more  prominent  in  still-life.  In  the  minute 
study  of  flowers  and  leaves,  for  example,  we  have  an 
overpowering  impression  of  looking  into  the  work  of  an 
artificer  of  the  subtlest  taste  and  inexhaustible  resource 
and  skill.  This  is  not  the  wire-drawn  fancy  of  an 
abstract  thinker,  but  what  occurs  to  the  mind  of  the 
straightforward  sympathetic  observer — "  even  Solomon 
in  all  his  glory  wvas  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these."  An 
equal  impression  of  subtlety  and  power  is  got  from  the 
lines  and  tints  of  scenery,  such  as  that  of  mountains. 
But  there  the  sense  of  contact  with  an  artificing  conscious- 
ness is  weaker  ;  because,  while  man  with  stone  and 
metal  can  imitate  the  lily,  mountains  are  beyond  him. 

Finally,  then,  of  landscape,  which  has  a  claim  to 
fuller  notice  as  having  only  reached  maturity  in  our  own 
time.  It  is  evident  that  no  simple  explanation  of  it 
will  suffice.  A  taste  of  ours  that  was  weak  in  the 
contemporaries  of  Goldsmith  and  Dr.  Johnson  must  be 
part  of  our  latest  gain  in  subtlety  and  power. 

To  put  it  broadly,  the  modern  taste  for  landscape- 
painting  is  based  on  sympathy  with  the  life  of  Nature, 
the  same  sympathy  which  drives  many  a  traveller  to 
roam  through  strange  and  lonely  places  of  the  earth. 
Here  is  a  passage  from  that  type  of  the  wandering 
nature-lover,  George  Kingsley,  which  is  an  example  how 
some  men  feel  about  islands  and  forests.  "  No  landscape 
seems  perfect  to  my  eyes  unless  they  can  see  therein 
a  bit  of  the  blue  water — therefore  I  love  an  island.  I 
love  the  sigh  and  the  sough  of  the  wind  in  the  black  pine 
forests  of  Germany  ;  I  love  the  swish  of  the  Northern 
birch-trees  in  the  fresh  odorous  early  morning,  when  the 
gale  has  just  gone  by,  and  the  wet  is  sweeping  in  little 
glittering  showers  off  their  lissom  branches  ;  I  love  the 
creak  and  groan  and  roar  of  the  great  oaks  in  a  storm  ; 
and  I  love  the  lazy  whispering  murmur  of  the  light  green 
limes  in  the  lazy  golden  summer  afternoon  ;  but,  above 
all  the  sounds  of  Nature,  I  love  the  voices  of  the  sea,  for 
they  speak  to  me  in  more  varied  tones,  and  I  know  that 
they  tell  me  more,  thought  I  know  not  what  they  tell  me, 


300  HENRY  STURT 


VI 


than  the  voices  of  a  million  sibilant  leaves — therefore 
I  love  an  island." ]  What  the  landscapist  does  is  to 
translate  this  sort  of  feeling  into  visual  form. 

Though  this  is  the  foundation  of  landscape -interest, 
the  influence  of  association  is  not  small.  Both  the 
main  interest  and  this  auxiliary  have  been  magnificently 
set  forth  by  Ruskin.  "  Among  the  hours  of  his  life  to 
which  the  writer  looks  back  with  peculiar  gratitude,  as 
having  been  marked  by  more  than  ordinary  fulness  of 
joy  or  clearness  of  teaching,  is  one  passed,  now  some 
years  ago,  near  time  of  sunset,  among  the  broken  masses 
of  pine  forest  which  skirt  the  course  of  the  Ain,  above 
the  village  of  Champagnole,  in  the  Jura.  It  is  a  spot 
which  has  all  the  solemnity,  with  none  of  the  savageness, 
of  the  Alps,  where  there  is  a  sense  of  a  great  power 
beginning  to  be  manifested  in  the  earth,  and  of  a  deep 
and  majestic  concord  in  the  rise  of  the  long,  low  lines  of 
piny  hills  ;  the  first  utterance  of  those  mighty  mountain 
symphonies,  soon  to  be  more  loudly  lifted  and  wildly 
broken  along  the  battlements  of  the  Alps.  But  their 
strength  is  as  yet  restrained,  and  the  far-reaching  ridges 
of  pastoral  mountain  succeed  each  other,  like  the  long 
and  sighing  swell  which  moves  over  quiet  waters  from 
some  far-off  stormy  sea.  And  there  is  a  deep  tenderness 
pervading  that  vast  monotony.  The  destructive  forces 
and  the  stern  expression  of  the  central  ranges  are  alike 
withdrawn.  No  frost-ploughed,  dust-encumbered  paths  of 
ancient  glacier  fret  the  soft  Jura  pastures  ;  no  splintered 
heaps  of  ruin  break  the  fair  ranks  of  her  forests  ;  no 
pale,  defiled,  or  furious  rivers  rend  their  rude  and  change- 
ful ways  among  her  rocks.  Patiently,  eddy  by  eddy, 
the  clear  green  streams  wind  along  their  well-known 
beds  ;  and  under  the  dark  quietness  of  the  undisturbed 
pines,  there  spring  up,  year  by  year,  such  company  of 
joyful  flowers  as  I  know  not  the  like  of  among  all  the 
blessings  of  the  earth.  It  was  springtime,  too  ;  and 
all  were  coming  forth  in  clusters  crowded  for  very  love  ; 
there  was  room  enough  for  all,  but  they  crushed  their 

1   Notes  on  Sport  and  Travel,  p.  60. 


vi  ART  AND  PERSONALITY  301 

leaves  into  all  manner  of  strange  shapes  only  to  be 
nearer  each  other.  There  was  the  wood-anemone,  star 
after  star,  closing  every  now  and  then  into  nebulae  ;  and 
there  was  the  oxalis,  troop  by  troop,  like  virginal  pro- 
cessions of  the  Mois  de  Marie,  the  dark  vertical  clefts 
in  the  limestone  choked  up  with  them  as  with  heavy 
snow,  and  touched  with  ivy  on  the  edges — ivy  as  light 
and  lovely  as  the  vine  ;  and,  ever  and  anon,  a  blue  gush 
of  violets,  and  cowslip  bells  in  sunny  places  ;  and  in 
the  more  open  ground,  the  vetch  and  comfrey,  and 
mezereon,  and  the  small  sapphire  buds  of  the  Poly  gala 
Alpina,  and  the  wild  strawberry,  just  a  blossom  or  two, 
all  showered  amidst  the  golden  softness  of  deep,  warm, 
amber-coloured  moss.  I  came  out  presently  on  the  edge 
of  the  ravine  :  the  solemn  murmur  of  its  waters  rose 
suddenly  from  beneath,  mixed  with  the  singing  of  the 
thrushes  among  the  pine  boughs  ;  and,  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  valley,  walled  all  along  as  it  was  by  grey 
cliffs  of  limestone,  there  was  a  hawk  sailing  slowly  off 
their  brow,  touching  them  nearly  with  his  wings,  and 
with  the  shadows  of  the  pines  flickering  upon  his  plumage 
from  above  ;  but  with  a  fall  of  a  hundred  fathoms  under 
his  breast,  and  the  curling  pools  of  the  green  river  gliding 
and  glittering  dizzily  beneath  him,  their  foam  globes 
moving  with  him  as  he  flew.  It  would  be  difficult  to 
conceive  a  scene  less  dependent  upon  any  other  interest 
than  that  of  its  own  secluded  and  serious  beauty  ;  but 
the  writer  well  remembers  the  sudden  blankness  and 
chill  which  were  cast  upon  it  when  he  endeavoured,  in 
order  more  strictly  to  arrive  at  the  sources  of  its  impres- 
siveness,  to  imagine  it,  for  a  moment,  a  scene  in  some 
aboriginal  forest  of  the  New  Continent.  The  flowers 
in  an  instant  lost  their  light  ;  the  river  its  music  ; *  the 
hills  became  oppressively  desolate  ;  a  heaviness  in  the 
boughs  of  the  darkened  forest  showed  how  much  01 
their  former  power  had  been  dependent  upon  a  life  which 
was  not  theirs,  how  much  of  the  glory  of  the  imperishable, 
or  continually  renewed,  creation  is  reflected  from  things 


302  HENRY  STURT  vi 

more  precious  in  their  memories  than  it,  in  its  renewing. 
Those  ever-springing  flowers,  and  ever-flowing  streams 
had  been  dyed  by  the  deep  colours  of  human  endurance, 
valour,  and  virtue  ;  and  the  crests  of  the  sable  hills  that 
rose  against  the  evening  sky  received  a  deeper  worship, 
because  their  far  shadows  fell  eastward  over  the  iron 
wall  of  Joux,  and  the  four-square  keep  of  Granson."  l 

After  George  Kingsley  and  Ruskin  it  is  perhaps 
superfluous  to  labour  my  main  point  further.  I  will  take 
these  extracts  as  proving  that  the  nature-lover  does  not 
think  of  nature  as  merely  material,  but  loves  it  as 
possessing  a  quasi-personal  life. 

§  9.  Music  could  hardly  be  discussed  adequately  till 
after  the  consideration  of  the  rival  theory  that  art  is  the 
expression  of  emotion,  a  theory  which  finds  its  strongest 
illustrations  in  music.  But  the  general  application  of 
my  view  in  regard  to  music  may  be  indicated  now. 

We  have  in  music  to  make  a  distinction  which  has 
not  been  necessary  in  the  other  arts,  that  between 
interpretation  and  composition.  Each  musical  perform- 
ance is,  like  an  actor's  interpretation  of  his  part,  a  sort 
of  re-creation  by  the  performer.  It  is  here  that  most 
of  the  enthusiasm  of  music  is  found,  and  here  that  it  is 
most  directly  intelligible.  For  to  make  a  great  musical 
work  live  again  in  sound  with  all  its  wealth  of  human 
feeling  and  ingenuity,  is  a  task  to  stimulate  interest  to 
the  highest.  But  what  we  are  mainly  concerned  with, 
according  to  our  standpoint,  is  the  mind  of  the  composer, 
and  we  must  determine  in  what  sense  the  composer  can 
be  said  to  be  moved  by  interest  in  personal  life. 

According  to  general  agreement,  music  is  the  most 
spontaneous  of  the  arts.  A  tune  springs  up  within  the 
composer's  mind,  he  cannot  tell  why  or  how.  He  cannot 
usually  say  more  than  that  it  "  comes  to  him."  But  if 
music  remained  on  this  level  of  mere  spontaneous 
expression,  we  should  never  get  anything  more  significant 
artistically  than  thoughtless  whistling.  There  must  be 
added  serious  effort  and  application.  Part  of  the  effort 

1   Se-cen  Lamps  of  Architecture,  p.   162. 


vi  ART  AND  PERSONALITY  303 

may  be  due  to  any  of  the  lower  motives  which  induce 
men  to  exert  themselves.  But  part  of  it,  I  venture  to 
say,  comes  from  enthusiasm  for  that  beautiful  world  of 
sound  which  is  man's  mysterious  and  delightful  heritage  ; 
and  a  still  greater  part  from  interest  in  the  varieties  of 
emotional  thought  which  music  is  fitted  to  convey. 

How  the  emotional  thought  in  good  music  may  be 
interpreted,  is  to  be  learnt  from  the  analyses  which  are 
common  in  musical  literature.  Good  examples  are 
Spitta's  analyses  of  the  Wohltempcricrtes  Clavier  in  his 
Life  of  Bach,  and  Wagner's  appreciations  of  Beethoven 
in  his  Art-Work  of  the  Future.  By  these  eminent  writers 
the  sentiment  of  Bach's  and  Beethoven's  music  is 
interpreted  in  a  great,  almost  heroic,  way.  But  I  will 
content  myself  with  a  simple  illustration.  Most  amateurs 
know  Heine's  cycle  of  songs  called  DicJiterliebe,  set  to 
music  by  Schumann.  The  first  song,  "  Im  wunderschonen 
Monat  Mai,"  is  a  beautiful  expression  of  happy  love  ;  a 
later  song,  "  Ich  grolle  nicht,"  a  magnificent  expression  of 
a  jilted  lover's  fury  and  despair.  Now,  there  is  no  reason 
to  think  that  Schumann  was  actually  convulsed  by  these 
rapturous  or  bitter  emotions  when  he  was  writing  the 
songs,  any  more  than  if  he  had  treated  the  incidents  by 
painting.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  was 
strongly  interested  in  them.  Man  was  to  him  worthy 
of  deeply  sympathetic  study,  and  his  emotions,  bright  or 
sombre,  well  worth  the  utmost  effort  of  the  musician  to 
enshrine  in  melody. 

8  10.  The  narrow  limits  of  an  essay  will  not  permit 
the  review  even  of  the  more  important  of  the  rival 
theories  of  the  essential  nature  of  artistic  interest.  But 
there  are  two  at  least  which  should  be  noticed,  partly 
for  their  intrinsic  importance,  partly  because  the  discussion 
of  them  will  throw  fresh  light  upon  the  position  just  laid 
down.  The  first  of  these  theories,  or  classes  of  theory, 
connects  art  with  emotion  ;  the  second  with  pleasure. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  art  implies  emotion  ;  every 
vital  action  does  so  in  more  or  less  degree,  and  art  more 
than  most.  For,  firstly,  art  is  not  the  main  business  of 


304  HENRY  STURT  VI 

life,  but,  like  play,  an  indulgence  out  of  our  superfluity. 
And  therefore  we  are  not  fully  fitted  to  produce  or  enjoy 
art  save  when  pleasurable  emotion  raises  the  tide  of  vital 
feeling  above  its  normal  force.  Secondly,  the  object 
of  artistic  representation  must  awaken  in  us  some  kind 
of  emotion,  bright  or  sombre.  Otherwise  it  would  be 
one  of  those  neutral  uninteresting  things  which  no  one 
cares  to  put  into  art.  This  we  may  call  the  present 
emotional  interest  of  the  artistic  object.  And,  thirdly, 
the  object  has  usually  a  remembered  emotional  interest. 
The  poet  who  writes  drinking  songs  is  usually  one  who  has 
had  immediate  personal  acquaintance  with  the  pleasures 
of  wine.  It  is  generally  admitted  that  a  wide  practical 
experience  of  life  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  equipment  of 
the  literary  artist.  But  all  this  is  far  from  justifying  what 
is  perhaps  the  dominant  theory  of  art  just  now,  that  art 
is  definable  as  the  expression  of  emotion. 

One  form  of  the  theory,  a  coarse,  uncritical  form,  may 
be  termed  the  Byronic  fallacy.  This  fallacy  assumes  that 
any  one  who  is  full  of  turbid  feeling  about  himself  is,  so 
far,  qualified  to  be  some  sort  of  artist  ;  by  preference,  a 
poet.  One  could  hardly  maintain  that  Byron  himself  held 
this  view,  even  at  the  epoch  when  he  began  to  write  CJiilde 
Harold ;  but  it  seems  to  have  been  current  in  the  early 
Victorian  period  among  a  certain  class  of  his  admirers. 
"  Demetrius  Wiggle,  sir,  is  the  slave  of  passion,"  says  the 
friend  of  a  Byronesque  young  man -about -town  in  one 
of  Thackeray's  books.  But,  in  reality,  to  feel  deeply 
miserable  and  discontented,  to  be  in  a  turmoil  of  love 
or  hate  or  ambition,  is,  so  far  as  these  feelings  are  self- 
regarding  mental  disturbances,  not  a  help,  but  a  hindrance 
to  poetry. 

§11.  Dr.  Bosanquet's  emotive  theory  of  art1  is  of 
course  much  more  refined  and  philosophic  than  the 
foregoing.  At  first,  we  must  admit,  there  does  not  seem 
to  be  much  difference.  He  says  :  "  I  suggest  as  the 
most  fundamental  and  universal  feature,  from  which  all 
the  common  characteristics  of  aesthetic  emotion  may  be 

1    "  On  the  Nature  of  /Esthetic  Kmotion  "  already  quoted. 


vi  ART  AND  PERSONALITY  305 

deduced,  the  simple  fact  that  it  is  expressed."  Surely, 
we  must  object,  this  is  far  too  sweeping.  At  this  rate, 
Achilles  expressing  emotion  by  sulking  in  his  tent  or 
dragging  Hector  by  the  heels  was  an  artist.  And  indeed 
we  find  presently  that  the  object  through  which  the 
emotion  is  expressed  is  very  important  ;  this  object 
must  be  "a  presentation  more  or  less  individual."  Dr. 
Bosanquet  adopts,  as  expressing  his  own  view,  Aristotle's 
analysis  of  tragedy,  interpreted  by  Lessing  and  Bernays. 
"  There  is  a  form  of  art  called  Tragedy  which  produces 
pleasure  by  means  of  two  painful  emotions,  pity  and 
fear.  How  this  is  possible  is  a  problem  that  answers 
itself  when  we  consider  the  conditions  of  artistic  expres- 
sion or  representation.  By  a  typical  portrayal  of  human 
life  in  some  story  that  forms  an  individual  whole,  the 
feelings  in  question  are  divested  of  their  personal  reference, 
and  acquire  a  content  drawn  from  what  is  serious  and 
noteworthy  in  humanity,  and  thus  alone,  it  seems  clearly 
to  be  Aristotle's  view,  can  their  quintessence  be  fully 
uttered  and  drawn  out  and  find  its  pleasurable  discharge 
free  from  morbid  elements  of  mere  shock  and  personal 
sensibility.  The  connection  of  pity  and  fear,  which  is  the 
centre  of  his  doctrine,  really  indicates  that  fear,  for  art, 
is  a  fear  idealised  by  expression  or  objective  embodiment, 
while  free  utterance  is  not  aided  but  lamed  and  obstructed 
by  any  intrusion  of  the  dumb  shock  of  personal  terror. 
Thus  then,  and  thus  alone,  can  fear  be  made  an  aesthetic 
emotion,  a  source  of  artistic  enjoyment  or  the  pleasure 
of  tragedy.  It  is  not,  and  this  is  a  fundamental  point, 
it  is  not  merely  that  the  emotion  is  'refined,'  in  the 
sense  that  its  bodily  resonance  is  rendered  less  intense. 
A  modified  resonance  will  attend  a  modified  emotion, 
but  the  intensity  of  feeling  is  not  a  question  of  principle 
in  relation  to  its  aesthetic  character.  The  aesthetic 
character  lies  in  the  dwelling  on  and  drawing  out  the 
feeling,  in  its  fullest  reference,  by  help  of  a  definite 
presentation  which  accents  its  nature" 

My  judgment  on   Dr.  Bosanquet's  doctrine  as  a  whole 
is  that,  starting  from  a  principle  which  is  quite  wrong,  it 

x 


3o6  HENRY  STURT  vi 

works  round  to  a  view  which  is  nearly  right;  his  approxi- 
mation to  truth  consisting  in  his  growing  recognition  of 
the  importance  of  objective  interest.  But  let  me  clear 
up  the  difference  between  us  by  considering  a  particular 
tragedy,  Richard  //.,  for  example.  In  spite  of  what 
he  said  earlier  in  his  essay,  when  combating  the  hedonist 
theory  of  art,  as  to  the  necessity  of  assuming  the  attitude 
of  the  "  mind  of  the  maker,"  it  is  clear  that  in  his  account 
of  tragedy  he  assumes  the  attitude  of  the  spectator.  If 
then,  he  seems  to  say,  we  met  Richard  II.  in  the  flesh, 
discrowned  and  miserable,  we  should  feel  an  immediate 
shock  of  painful  emotion  which  would  not  be  art.  When 
awakened,  however,  by  the  dignified  scenic  representation 
of  the  hapless  king  these  emotions  become  artistic. 

Against  this  I  would  urge  that  as  a  preliminary  we 
must  assume  the  attitude  of  the  tragic  artist  ;  for  the 
feeling  of  the  spectator  is  only  that  of  the  artist  at 
second-hand.  Then  we  shall  see,  I  think,  that  what 
Shakespeare  was  interested  in,  was  not  the  emotions 
of  pity  and  fear,  but  the  man  Richard  II.  as  delineated 
by  the  Chronicle  and  vivified  and  ennobled  by  his  own 
poetic  imagination.  His  artistic  effort  consisted  in  the 
construction  of  a  drama  to  exhibit  the  action  of  the  king 
under  pathetic  circumstances.  The  pity  and  fear  of 
the  tragic  artist  and  the  spectators  are  secondary  to  their 
interest  in  the  persons  of  the  play.  Dr.  Bosanquet  holds 
that  the  object  is  important  because  of  the  emotions  ; 
the  truth  is  rather  that  the  emotions  are  important 
because  of  the  object. 

The  argument  of  those  who  hold  an  emotive  theory 
of  art  is  strongest  in  music.  There  the  current  opinion 
is  that  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  the  process  is  the  genera- 
tion of  a  succession  of  emotions.  This  may  approximate 
to  the  truth  as  regards  the  hearer,  but  not  as  regards  the 
composer.  And  how  fallacious  it  is  as  regards  the  per- 
former may  be  known  by  watching  good  musicians.  In- 
terested they  arc,  but  not  emotionally  upset,  either  about 
the  content  of  the  music  or  about  their  own  concerns.  I 
once  read  an  absurd  remark  that  the  piano-playing  of  a 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  307 

young  girl  full  of  feeling  is  more  artistically  satisfying 
than  that  of  a  more  skilful  middle-aged  performer.  This 
is  the  Byronic  fallacy  again.  The  playing  of  young  people 
is  generally  cold.  They  are  full  of  feeling,  but  it  is  feeling 
about  themselves,  the  sort  that  has  no  immediate  value 
for  art.  The  elder  performer  is  much  more  likely  to  play 
warmly  because  the  years  have  trained  him  in  sympathy. 

In  the  other  arts  I  am  on  ground  which  is  plainly 
much  stronger.  If  we  watch  a  good  painter  working  at  a 
portrait  we  do  not  see  that  he  is  labouring  under  strong 
emotion  ;  we  are  astonished  at  his  technical  mastery  and 
insight  into  character.  The  nearer  we  get  to  the  mere 
expression  of  emotion,  as  in  the  antics  of  boys  who  have 
been  promised  a  holiday,  the  further  we  get  from  art. 

§  12.  Pleasure,  like  emotion,  is  obviously  connected 
very  closely  with  art.  Art  is  not  a  means  of  self-  or  race- 
preservation,  at  least  in  its  modern  form,  whatever  anthro- 
pologists may  tell  us  of  its  origin.  It  would  therefore  not 
be  pursued  unless  it  brought  pleasure  on  the  whole.  But 
when  this  is  admitted  we  are  very  far  from  admitting  that 
art  is  definable  as  a  kind  of  pleasure-seeking.  Such  a 
definition  would  miss  out  the  characteristic  feature  of  the 
thing  defined.  Nor  would  it  be  true  in  many  individual 
cases.  For  if  we  interrogated  an  artist  of  the  higher  class 
on  the  subject  we  should  probably  find  that,  though  he 
valued  his  art  as  infinitely  precious,  he  did  not  regard  it  as 
an  unmixed  source  of  pleasure.  In  particular,  the  early 
struggles  of  a  serious  artist  are  generally  somewhat 
distressing  both  to  the  sufferer  and  his  near  relations. 
There  is  an  intense  interest  in  the  artistic  object,  with  a 
constant  failure  to  embody  it  in  adequate  artistic  repre- 
sentation, resulting  in  painful  fluctuations  of  spirits  and 
temper.  Hence  the  sympathy  of  the  St.  Ivcs  fisherwife 
for  the  students  painting  on  the  foreshore  :  "  What  a  pity 
them  poor  artises  do  get  so  set  on  it." 

Some  years  ago  the  hedonist  theory  of  art  would  have 
needed  a  formal  refutation.  But  it  is  not  held  now  with 
the  same  tenacity,  except  by  those  who  insist  on  solving 
all  philosophical  problems  by  a  reference  to  biology.  No 


308  HENRY  STURT  vi 

biological  philosopher  ever  begins  an  analysis  of  human 
experience  at  a  higher  point  than  the  mammalia.  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  indeed  starts  his  Data  of  Ethics  with 
remarks  on  infusoria  and  mollusca.  Conformably  to  this 
tendency,  what  we  may  term  the  Bauble-Theory  connects 
human  art  with  the  taste  of  bower-birds  in  decorating  their 
nests  with  scraps  of  bright  colour,  and  with  the  gratification 
of  the  pea-hen  in  the  magnificence  of  her  spouse's  tail. 
Coming  down  to  man  the  bauble  -  theory  puts  the 
beginning  of  art  in  the  sensuous  pleasure  which  primitive 
man  feels  in  bright  colours,  simple  harmonies  and  allitera- 
tive or  rhyming  jingles  of  words.  The  truth  is  that  such 
sensuously  pleasant  things  cannot  be  more  than  the 
material  or  vehicle  of  art  ;  its  essence  cannot  lie  in  them. 
Grant  Allen's  Physiological  ^Esthetics,  excellent  so  far  as 
it  goes,  does  not  really  touch  the  central  matter  of  art  at 
all.  It  would  be  equally  possible  to  write  a  Physiological 
Ethics  or  Physiological  Theory  of  Knowledge  which  should 
circle  round  among  the  external  conditions  of  morality 
and  knowledge  without  telling  us  anything  about  their 
inner  reality. 

The  gist  of  the  matter  comes  to  light  when  we 
consider  that  only  some  pleasant  objects  are  suitable  for 
art,  those  namely  that  we  can  enjoy  consistently  with 
an  unselfish  interest  in  their  permanence  and  welfare. 
Things  that  we  can  only  enjoy  in  a  self-regarding  way, 
such  as  food,  can  with  difficulty  be  treated  artistically. 
A  picture  of  the  most  sumptuously  spread  dinner-table 
would  not  be  admissible  as  fine  art.  The  Dutch  kitchen- 
pictures  of  fruit,  vegetables,  and  game,  those  of  Mien's 
for  example,  though  painted  with  an  unselfish  interest 
in  the  forms  and  colours  of  the  objects,  suffer  decidedly 
from  their  material  associations.  It  is  the  pleasures  of 
sight  and  hearing  that  are  specially  artistic  because  they 
can  be  enjoyed  consistently  with  self-detached  interest 
in  the  object  for  its  own  sake,  and  are  not  diminished 
by  being  shared  with  others.  Selfish  pleasure  is  the 
death  of  art. 

It  may  have  been  noticed  that  I  have  so  far  not  used 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  309 

the  current  term  "  aesthetic  "  in  regard  to  art-experience. 
As  a  synonym  for  "  artistic  "  I  think  it  highly  objection- 
able, because  it  suggests  the  reduction  of  the  appreciation 
of  beauty  to  a  form  of  perception.  But  it  may  be 
usefully  employed  to  describe  those  sensations  and 
pleasures  which,  in  virtue  of  their  refined  quality,  are 
capable  of  being  used  for  art.  If  we  use  aesthetic  in  this 
sense  we  ought  to  note  that  no  experience,  however 
aesthetically  refined,  rises  to  the  level  of  art  unless  it 
contains  the  element  of  objective  interest.  I  have  read 
of  some  character  in  fiction  who  invented  a  scent-organ, 
consisting  of  rows  of  bottles  filled  with  various  scents, 
and  a  mechanical  arrangement  like  a  key -board  for 
opening  the  stoppers.  Was  the  pleasure  got  from  this 
instrument  artistic  ?  Probably  not  We  cannot  of 
course  be  certain  that  to  a  man  of  exceptional  disposition 
scents  may  not  suggest  as  much  objective  content  as 
musical  sounds  to  other  people.  But  if  not,  his 
experience  is  merely  aesthetic.  The  scent  of  a  rose  has 
great  artistic  value  because  it  enhances  an  artistic  interest 
which  is  already  there.  Without  the  flower,  the  perfume 
avails  nothing  for  art. 

§13.  Both  the  emotive  and  the  hedonist  theories  of 
art  are  supported  by  a  tendency  which  has  had  a  baleful 
influence  on  speculation,  far  outside  the  sphere  of  art- 
philosophy — the  tendency  of  subjective  idealism.  The 
two  theories  have  their  common  point  in  the  ignoring 
of  the  object  and  the  endeavour  to  seek  the  source  of 
the  art-interest  entirely  within  the  subject.  The  same 
tendency  in  another  form  is  countenanced  by  Hegel 
when  he  raises  the  question,  "  What  is  man's  need  to 
produce  works  of  art?"1  and  answers  that  it  is  self- 
reduplication.  As  a  tJiinking  consciousness,  man,  says 
Hegel,  "  draws  out  of  himself  and  makes  explicit  for 
himself,  that  which  he  is."  "  Man  as  mind  reduplicates 
himself."  "  He  has  the  impulse  ...  to  produce  himself, 
and  therein  at  the  same  time  to  recognise  himself.  This 
purpose  he  achieves  by  the  modification  of  external  things 

1   Introduction  to  Philosophy  of  Fine  Art,  trans,  by  Bosanquet,  p.  57. 


310  HENRY  STURT 


VI 


upon  which  he  impresses  the  seal  of  his  inner  being,  and 
then  finds  repeated  in  them  his  own  characteristics.  Man 
does  this  in  order  as  a  free  subject  to  strip  the  outer 
world  of  its  stubborn  foreignness,  and  to  enjoy  in  the 
shape  and  fashion  of  things  a  mere  external  reality  of 
himself."  "  The  universal  need  for  expression  in  art  lies, 
therefore,  in  man's  rational  impulse  to  exalt  the  inner 
and  outer  world  into  a  spiritual  consciousness  for  himself, 
as  an  object  in  which  he  recognises  his  own  self."  And 
this  process  is  termed  a  "  reduplication  of  himself." 
Professed  interpreters  of  Hegel  may  question  what  part 
self-reduplication  plays  in  his  art-theory  as  a  whole  ;  but 
the  foregoing  extracts  from  the  Introduction  are  enough 
to  bring  home  to  him  at  least  a  subjective -idealising 
tendency,  a  tendency  which  cannot  fail  to  lead  astray. 
Man  needs  art  because  it  is  a  form  of  objective  interest 
which  is  essential  to  his  higher  life.  The  objects  are 
akin  to  himself ;  but  they  are  not  himself,  nor  does  he 
try  to  make  them  so. 

Had  Hegel's  expressions  not  been  worded  so  as  to 
exclude  the  objective  interest  of  art  (as  they  apparently 
do),  we  might  have  taken  them  as  merely  emphasising 
its  subjective  side  which  is  no  less  essential  than  the 
objective.  For  though  art  is  not  self-reduplication,  it 
might  fairly  be  described  as  self-expression.  The  artist's 
work  is  always  Jiis  work  ;  the  appreciation  which  it 
embodies  is  Jiis  appreciation.  When  the  artist  has  his 
completed  work,  the  poem  or  the  picture,  before  him,  he 
sees  that  it  embodies  not  only  the  beauty  which  interested 
him  to  make  the  work,  but  also  his  interest  in  the  beauty. 
Hegel's  preoccupation  with  the  subjective  clement  must 
not  drive  us  into  exclusive  preoccupation  with  the 
objective. 

§  1 4.  The  admiring  appreciation  of  personal  life,  which 
is  the  mainspring  of  art,  is  the  mainspring  of  knowledge 
and  morality  also.  There  is  not  room  here  to  justify  the 
parallelism  in  detail  ;  but  it  is  important  to  forestall  the 
notion  that  art  is  an  anomalous  province  of  our  life.  Of 
both  knowledge  and  morality  it  may  be  said  that  they  arc 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  311 

unselfishly  enthusiastic,  and  that  the  objects  of  their 
enthusiasm  are  persons,  or  things  with  personal  qualities. 

The  value  of  enthusiasm  in  knowledge-seeking  is 
tolerably  well  seen  now.  No  one  can  fail  to  acknowledge 
it  who  remembers  that  knowing  is,  primarily,  a  creative 
process.  This  last  point,  truly,  is  often  overlooked. 
When  knowledge  is  thought  of  as  a  cut-and-dried  system 
stored  in  literary  warehouses  the  man  of  knowledge  is 
identified  with  the  book-worm.  But  we  should  rather 
think  of  the  student  as  an  ardent  creator  ;  a  maker,  not  a 
manipulator,  of  theories.  Knowledge  must  be  dis- 
tinguished from  erudition. 

Another  distinction  will  vindicate  the  unselfish  character 
of  knowledge.  Many  things  which  people  need  to  know 
cannot  be  dignified  by  that  lofty  term,  the  fluctuations  of 
the  tallow-market  for  example.  Knowledge  must  be 
distinguished  from  information.  A  vast  mass  of 
materially  useful  information  about  food  and  clothing  and 
travelling  and  so  on  is  only  learnt  by  people  because  it  is 
useful,  and  is  forgotten  as  soon  as  it  becomes  useless. 
We  shall  have  later  (in  §  24)  to  make  a  similar  distinction 
between  art  and  manufacture.  What  really  deserves  the 
name  of  knowledge  is  a  content  which  is  worth  knowing 
for  itself ;  a  content  which  fascinates  our  interest  because 
of  the  intellectual  force  which  it  embodies. 

What  the  objects  are  which  excite  the  enthusiasm  of 
knowledge  may  be  ascertained  by  the  rough-and-ready 
method  of  taking  down  a  volume  of  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica  and  turning  over  the  leaves.  You  will  find  that 
the  greater  part  of  it,  and  the  most  interesting  part  of  it, 
deals  with  mankind's  proper  study,  man.  The  natural 
sciences,  which  are  falsely  supposed  to  be  more  "  scientific  " 
than  the  human,  are  apparently,  but  only  apparently,  an 
exception.  For  the  universal  or  generic  judgment  of 
science  should  be  interpreted  teleologically,  i.e.  as 
expressing  purpose  or  system  in  its  content.  And 
purpose  and  system  are  conceptions  which  are  fully 
intelligible  only  in  reference  to  the  conduct  of  personal 
agents.  The  interpretation  of  personal  conduct  is  really 


312  HENRY  STURT 


VI 


the  most  characteristic  form  of  knowlege.  In  nature  we 
are  interested  from  a  two-fold  motive.  Where  it  is  alive 
it  has  a  claim  on  us  merely  from  its  vitality.  Bits  of  life 
are  always  interesting  to  a  living  mind.  To  the  mature 
intellect  it  is  interesting  because  we  trace  in  it  subtle  far- 
reaching  design. 

On  the  essential  part  which  the  enthusiasm  of 
humanity  plays  in  moral  experience  I  must  be  even 
briefer  ;  the  more  so  as  I  hope  to  deal  with  the  matter 
some  day  in  another  place.  Perhaps  it  is  enough  now  to 
appeal  to  the  consensus  of  Christian  moralists,  who,  using 
the  term  charity,  make  this  enthusiasm  the  basis  of 
all  virtue. 

All  this  must  not  be  understood  to  mean  that  art  is 
identical  with,  or  merely  another  form  of,  knowledge  and 
morality.  There  is,  as  just  explained,  a  generic  kinship 
between  them  ;  but,  beyond  that,  there  is  a  specific 
difference  which  is  irreducible  and  also  indefinable.  They 
are  three  distinct  ways  of  appreciating  our  fellow-men. 
Taken  together,  they  may  be  said  to  constitute  our 
Higher  Life. 

§  1 5.  Unselfish  appreciation  of  men,  which  in  its 
stronger  form  is  enthusiasm,  is  thus  the  quality  which  gives 
to  our  higher  pursuits  a  common  generic  character.  But, 
more  than  that,  it  is  the  interfusion  of  the  same  quality 
which  gives  to  objects  the  capacity  of  being  interesting. 
For  it  is  certain  that  interesting  objects  have  a  definite 
common  quality.  Enthusiasm  docs  not  operate  in  vacua, 
or  attach  itself  to  any  object  at  random.  People  often 
speak  as  if  it  did  ;  but  this  presupposes  an  unreal 
detachment  of  the  subject  from  its  object,  parallel,  it  may 
be  remarked,  to  that  libcrum  arbitrium  indifferentice  which 
so  grievously  caricatures  the  true  freedom  of  the  will. 
Enthusiasm  is  only  felt  for  appropriate  objects. 

If  we  study  the  persons  for  whom  we  feel  it  reasonable 
to  be  enthusiastic,  we  shall  see  that  they  are  themselves 
persons  of  enthusiasm.  Fundamentally,  enthusiasm  is 
what  differentiates  the  man  from  the  Yahoo.  The  student 
of  our  Saxon  Heptarchy,  who  has  never  read  beyond 


vi  ART  AND  PERSONALITY  313 

Milton's  history,  will  think  disgustedly  of  those  troubled 
times  as  "  the  fighting  of  kites  and  crows,"  because  he  can 
see  nothing  in  them  but  endless  jarring  selfishness  ;  to 
the  modern  historian  they  are  interesting,  because  he 
recognises  in  them  the  "  Making  of  England,"  the  seed- 
time of  a  noble  culture. 

In  regard  to  objects  below  the  human  level  a  good 
deal  was  said  to  the  present  purpose  when  it  was  proved 
that  their  artistically  interesting  qualities  are  personal,  or 
at  least,  vital.  It  is  only  necessary  to  carry  the  same 
line  of  argument  a  step  farther.  Let  us  raise  the  question, 
What  is  it  that  makes  living  creatures  valuable  ?  Our 
modern  sense  of  the  value  of  life  is  certainly  not  primitive. 
Uncultured  men  destroy  life  with  no  compunction  on  the 
slightest  grounds.  What  is  at  the  bottom,  not  only  of 
modern  humanitarianism,  but  also  of  that  interest  in  living 
forms,  which  moves  the  great  throng  of  naturalists  ?  I 
cannot  see  that  the  mere  fact  of  animation  gives  much 
claim.  If  a  creature  has  no  beauty  or  intricacy  of  plan, 
or  is  not  closely  connected  with  higher  creatures,  it  is 
nothing.  As  a  fact,  perhaps  no  form  of  life  fulfils  these 
conditions  of  exclusion.  But  some  come  so  near  it  that 
not  one  man  in  a  hundred  thousand  takes  interest  in 
them.  Compare,  for  example,  the  popularity  of  birds 
with  the  neglect  of  spiders,  and  you  will  find  an  example 
of  my  principle.  Birds  are  not  enthusiasts ;  but  they 
look  as  if  an  enthusiast  had  made  them.  We  enjoy  their 
beauty  like  children  charmed  by  a  picture  and  careless  of 
the  painter. 

A  characteristic  of  art  and  of  its  allied  experiences 
which  might  be  deduced  from  what  has  been  already  said 
is  its  strength  of  vital  feeling.  It  would  be  a  plain 
contradiction  to  think  of  enthusiasm  as  languid  and 
decadent  ;  and  the  same  is  true  of  its  objects.  The 
higher  life  is  strong  and  the  objects  of  its  interest  are  full 
of  strong  life.  Men,  beasts  and  plants,  mountains  and 
streams,  clouds  and  air  must,  in  order  that  the  artist 
may  love  them,  be  full  of  such  life  as  is  allowed  them. 
Beauty  is  a  kind  of  high  vitality  ;  ugliness  belongs  to 


314  HENRY  STURT 


VI 


death,  decay,  and  disease,  or  the  disorder  that  leads  to 
them. 

III.  THE  SEPARATENESS  OF  ART 

§  1 6.  So  far  we  have  been  considering  facts  which 
show  the  '  altogetherness '  of  the  elements  of  the  higher 
life  ;  we  come  now  to  facts  which  show  their  separateness. 
Not  that  the  facts  are  inconsistent  or  that  we  are  reduced 
to  an  '  antinomy.'  I  only  mean  that  while  at  some  times 
and  in  some  respects  we  feel  a  unity  conjoining  art, 
knowledge,  and  morality,  otherwise  we  feel  that  they  are 
separate  from  each  other. 

The  separateness  has  in  the  first  place  what  may  be 
called  a  formal  or  outward  aspect.  Art  is  a  discontinuous 
interest  both  in  our  experiencing  of  it  and  also  in  regard 
to  the  objects  of  the  interest.  The  former  kind  of  dis- 
continuity is  too  generally  recognised  to  require  proof. 
Art  lies  outside  the  vital  needs  of  our  existence  and 
therefore  must  always  be  an  episode.  In  regard  to  the 
object  also  the  artistic  interest  is  episodic  in  a  way  that 
morality  and  knowledge  can  never  be.  True  moral 
interest,  such  as  admiration  for  a  noble  action,  implies  a 
reference  to  the  character  of  the  doer  of  the  action,  in 
other  words,  a  reference  to  a  system  that  is  both  continuous 
and  extensive.  True  epistemonic  interest  is  not  an  interest 
in  detached  facts,  but  in  facts  which  bear  on  some  big 
system,  preferably  that  supreme,  enveloping  system 
which  we  call  reality.  We  cannot  pick  up  a  piece  of 
knowledge  or  of  moral  interest  and  then  drop  it  and  have 
done  with  it.  This,  however,  is  the  case  in  art.  A  painter 
sees  a  pretty  child  in  the  street,  gets  it  for  a  model, 
paints  it  with  all  his  might,  sells  the  picture  and,  possibly, 
never  thinks  of  the  child  again,  save  in  that  isolated 
regard. 

In  the  products  of  art  both  the  subjective  and  the 
objective  discontinuity  are  exemplified.  The  picture 
embodies  a  mood  of  the  artist ;  and  also  an  aspect  of  the 
model.  Both  mood  and  aspect  are,  as  it  were,  snap- 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  315 

shotted  in  one  self-justifying  presentation.  Hence  the 
self-containedness  of  the  artistic  product.  Every  one 
knows  that  the  good  picture  need  not  be  in  the  least 
useful,  or  teach  a  moral  lesson,  or  be  strictly  veracious. 
But  its  independence  within  its  own  sphere  needs 
emphasising  too.  We  do  not  very  greatly  care  if  we 
cannot  harmonise  the  various  plays  of  Shakespeare,  we  do 
not  care,  that  is, if  the  consistency  of  characters  which  appear 
in  more  than  one  play  be  not  maintained  ;  or  if  different 
plays  exhibit  inconsistent  views  of  life  on  the  poet's  part. 
It  is  true  that  this  self-containedness  is  not  absolute. 
We  should  get  more  pleasure  from  the  whole  series  of 
Shakespeare's  plays  if  we  could  view  them,  not  merely  as 
detached  efforts,  but  as  the  expression  of  a  continuously 
developing  poetic  genius.  But  in  the  main  the  single 
poem,  picture,  or  symphony  stands  alone.  Its  main 
interest  lies  within  its  four  corners.  It  shines  by  its  own 
light  ;  not  borrowing  much  light,  or  reflecting  it. 

It  would  have  been  possible,  had  not  the  empirical 
proof  seemed  more  solid,  to  have  appealed  earlier  in  this 
essay  (in  §  6)  to  the  discontinuity  of  the  artistic  interest  in 
aid  of  my  thesis  that  its  object  must  be  humanity.  A  con- 
tinuous interest  might  be  thought  to  be  interesting  from  its 
continuity  alone.  It  might  be  argued  that  the  claim  of 
geometry  does  lie  in  the  fact  that  it  is  an  immense 
complex  system  \vhich  the  most  diligent  explorer  can 
never  exhaust  ;  and  an  attempt  (though  I  think  a 
fallacious  attempt)  might  be  made  in  this  way  to  show 
that  we  can  be  enthusiastic  without  being  enthusiastic 
over  man.  But  take  away  this  element  of  continuity  and 
by  what  can  we  explain  the  claim  of  art  but  by  its 
embodiment  of  human  nature  ?  Where  else  can  this 
perennial  fount  of  unselfish  interest  be  supposed  to  lie  ? 

§  17.  But  this  formal  characteristic  of  discontinuity 
does  not  give  the  essential  difference  of  art  from  its  kindred 
pursuits.  That  difference  really  consists  in  the  felt  quality 
of  the  artistic  experience  and  in  the  quality  of  the  objects 
for  which  it  is  felt.  Art,  knowledge,  and  morality  are 
different  ways  of  feeling  appreciation  for  our  fcllowmcn. 


316  HENRY  STURT  vi 

Art  is  a  kind  of  felt  experience  whose  quality  is  definite, 
irreducible,  and  indefinable.  In  support  of  this,  an  appeal 
can  only  be  made  to  self-observation.  Let  us  suppose 
ourselves  interested  in  some  great  and  good  man,  Cardinal 
Newman,  for  example.  Then  our  interest  may  be  either 
moral,  and  move  us  to  exhibit  our  admiration  in  conduct ; 
or  it  may  be  epistemonic  and  move  us  to  explore  his 
character  with  a  scientific  curiosity  ;  or  it  may  be  artistic 
and  move  us  to  paint  his  portrait  or  make  him  the  hero 
of  a  poem  or  tale.  My  argument  is  that,  in  the  main,  we 
should  have  a  different  kind  of  experience  in  each  case. 

The  chief  objection  to  this  would  come  from  those  who 
take  a  view  of  art  which  seems  to  me  to  be  quite  mistaken. 
Put  shortly,  this  view  is  that  the  artistic  attitude  is  to  say 
"  How  fine ! "  and  do  nothing.  It  is  easy  to  see  how  this 
notion  arises.  In  the  first  place  artistic  experience  is 
supposed  to  be  typified,  not  by  the  artist,  but  by  the 
non- performing  connoisseur.  This  is  a  common  and 
excusable  error.  But  then,  by  a  fatal  and  easy  extension, 
any  sort  of  non-performing  admirer  is  credited  with  an 
artistic  experience,  and  the  video -meliora-proboque 
debauchee  is  said  to  look  at  morality  in  an  '  artistic '  way. 
This  is  not  art  but  morality-and-water  ;  a  barren  velleity 
towards  virtue. 

§  1 8.  On  the  objective  side,  the  separateness  comes 
out  very  plainly.  Defining  excellent  persons  as  those 
who  have  strong  unselfish  appreciations,  we  may  say  that 
the  artist's  main  interest  is  in  excellent  persons.  But 
it  is  also  true  that  not  all  excellent  persons  interest  him 
to  an  equal  degree.  The  artistic  sort  are  more  interesting 
than  the  other  two. 

This  point  may  be  brought  out  in  a  concrete  form  by 
asking  :  What  kind  of  face  is  the  painter  most  attracted 
by  ?  This  may  sound  a  hopelessly  vague  question  ;  but 
we  must  try  to  think  of  the  typical  artist  in  his  most 
characteristic  moods.  In  all  such  fluctuating  matters 
one  may  discover  a  centre  of  gravity,  so  to  speak. 
Allowing,  then,  for  varieties  of  mood  and  idiosyncrasy 
I  think  it  true  to  say  that  the  most  interesting  sort 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  317 

of  face  to  paint  is  that  of  an  artistic  person  ;  not 
necessarily  that  of  an  artist,  but  of  some  one  with 
strong  artistic  appreciations.  The  faces  of  men  notable 
for  other  excellences  have  interest  too  ;  but  not  so  much. 
Moreover,  it  is  rare  to  find  the  other  excellences,  when 
they  reach  any  considerable  pitch,  entirely  disjoined  from 
the  artistic.  Certainly  it  is  not  prettiness  which  makes 
a  face  paintable.  The  portraits  in  the  Royal  Academy 
which  we  gaze  at  are  those  of  persons  full  of  character, 
statesmen,  warriors,  philanthropists,  men  of  science, 
literature,  and  art.  The  ladies  who  are  mere  beauties 
we  pass  with  an  indulgent  smile. 

The  same  fact  comes  home  to  us  more  strikingly  from 
the  negative  side.  There  are  people  of  our  acquaintance 
neither  stupid  nor  morally  objectionable  who  impress  us 
as  alien  to  art.  Their  faces,  figures,  and  dresses  offer  no 
material  for  painting  ;  their  conversation  and  way  of 
life  have  no  suggestions  for  poetry  or  romance.  Their 
houses  are  oppressive  with  commonplace  ;  and  an  artist 
would  find  it  very  hard  to  work  in  them.  Now,  if  we 
consider  why  these  people  are  not  artistically  interesting 
we  shall  find  it  is  because  they  are  themselves  not 
interested  in  art.  They  do  not  really  care  for  romantic 
fiction,  or  poetry,  or  pictures,  or  noble  music.  They 
may  recite  or  clatter  on  the  piano  ;  but  it  is  all  super- 
ficial. Their  houses  may  contain  fine  furniture,  or  even 
costly  china  locked  up  in  glass  cabinets  ;  but  there  are 
none  of  those  personal  touches  which  show  that  the 
owners  have  a  genuine  sensibility  to  the  beautiful. 

We  need  not  delay  long  over  considering  the  separate- 
ness  in  regard  to  things.  Most  interesting  things  attract 
us  both  from  an  epistemonic  and  an  artistic  point  of  view. 
Flowers,  for  instance,  are  attractive  both  to  the  painter 
and  the  morphological  botanist,  though  for  quite  different 
reasons.  But  we  do  not  always  get  this  combination. 
Few  things  are  more  interesting  to  the  understanding 
than  the  inner  histology  of  the  human  frame  ;  nothing 
is  more  hopelessly  impossible  for  purposes  of  art.  The 
subjective  ground  of  this  objective  quality  lies  in  the 


3i8  HENRY  STURT  vi 

fact  that  the  human  inside  is  a  thing  which  we  could 
neither  synthesise  nor  analyse  with  the  distinctive  artistic 
experience. 

§  19.  We  may  now  touch  on  some  causes  which 
hinder  the  general  recognition  of  the  separateness  of 
the  artistic  experience.  One  of  them  is  that  mis- 
conception of  the  artistic  attitude  as  the  attitude  of 
the  non- performing  admiration,  which  was  mentioned 
recently. 

Another  cause,  trivial-seeming  yet  powerful,  is  language 
— the  application  of  artistic  terms  to  non-artistic  things. 
It  is  common  to  hear  men  speak  of  a  pretty  checkmate 
or  a  beautiful  operation  in  surgery.  (" '  Lovely  sight 
if  Slasher  does  it,'  remarked  Mr.  Bob  Sawyer.")  But 
such  things  are  not  really  beautiful  in  the  sense  that 
a  picture  is  beautiful.  The  good  checkmate  or  good 
operation  are  doubtless,  owing  to  their  neatness  and 
effectiveness,  as  satisfying  in  their  own  way  as  the 
good  picture  ;  but  the  satisfaction  is  not  of  the  same 
kind.  People  who  overlook  this  will  talk  of  the  artistic 
satisfaction  to  be  got  from  checkmates  and  operations. 
But  the  use  of  the  artistic  word  has  no  more  real 
appropriateness  than  the  common  cook's  term  "beautiful" 
to  describe  a  nice  pudding. 

Another  cause  is  the  transference  of  art-forms  to  the 
service  of  interests  which  are  not  only  external  to  art 
but  external  to  the  higher  life  altogether.  Some  of  these 
interests  are  base,  and  then  we  feel  that  the  forms  are 
degraded  in  a  painful  way.  Usually  the  interests  are 
well  enough  in  their  own  sphere.  As  examples  may  be 
cited  many  of  the  popular  pictures  of  war  or  hunting. 
Such  pictures  may  possess  artistic  merit.  But  often 
there  is  no  more  art  in  them  than  in  a  photograph  of  a 
prize-fight. 

The  case  is  rather  different  where  art-forms  are  used 
for  moral  or  epistemonic  purposes.  This  is  not  infrequent 
in  modern  days;  there  are  examples  in  Browning.  Much 
of  the  interest  of  The  Ring  and  the  Book  is  ethical  or 
psychological  rather  than  artistic.  To  say  this  implies 


vi  ART  AND  PERSONALITY  319 

no  complaint  against  Browning.  Any  great  thinker  has 
a  right  to  give  his  message  in  any  form  he  finds  most 
convenient.  It  is  our  own  fault  if  the  boundaries  of  art 
are  confused  in  our  minds  thereby.  The  same  trans- 
ference of  form  is  seen  in  painting.  For  example  may 
be  mentioned  a  recent  Academy  picture  of  Mr.  Gow's, 
The  Great  Nile  Dam  at  Assouan,  which  shows  us  a  piece 
of  the  half- finished  wall,  railway  trucks  laden  with 
Portland  cement,  some  natives  mixing  mortar,  the 
eminent  English  contractor  under  an  umbrella  standing 
with  a  little  group  round  an  engineer  who  traces  plans 
with  a  walking-stick  in  the  sand.  All  most  interesting  ; 
but  not  art  in  the  same  sense  that  Mr.  Watts'  pictures 
are  art. 

And  finally,  there  is  the  fact  that  the  separateness 
is  not  absolute.  In  art  there  is  always  some  admixture 
of  knowledge  and  morals  ;  and  in  the  highest  art  a  great 
deal.  We  shall  have  to  consider  this  further  by 
and  by. 

§  20.  We  find  the  same  separateness  in  the  case  of 
knowledge.  To  the  man  of  knowledge  what  is  mainly 
interesting  is  the  minds  and  experience  of  intellectual 
men  ;  or,  to  speak  more  precisely,  of  men  in  general  on 
their  distinctively  intellectual  side.  For,  whereas  art  is 
somewhat  aside  from  the  main  business  of  life,  knowledge 
is  diffused  through  the  whole  of  it.  In  this  connection 
I  mean  by  the  man  of  knowledge  not  only  the  profes- 
sional scientist  who,  like  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  lives  to 
explore  and  think  ;  but  also  the  man  of  intellectual 
power  who,  throughout  the  conduct  of  his  life,  shows 
an  unselfish  love  of  intellectual  construction  and  com- 
prehension. 

So  also  with  morality.  The  interest  of  the  virtuous 
man  is  centred  in  virtuous  men.  It  is  true  that  other 
excellences  of  character  awake  in  us  something  of  the 
same  sort  of  admiration  as  moral  goodness,1  but  in  a 
much  inferior  degree.  There  are  phrases  current  which 
might  lead  one  to  suppose  that  the  greatest  saints  think 

1   Cf.  my  article  entitled  "  Duty  "  in  International  Journal  of  J-'.thics  for  April,  1897. 


320  HENRY  STURT 


VI 


less  of  virtuous  men  than  of  sinners.  This  is  not  so. 
Sinners  are  interesting  in  so  far  as  they  are  not  hopeless, 
but  still  have  the  makings  of  good  men.  Once  they  are 
finally  judged  and  relegated  to  hell,  no  one  imagines  that 
the  saints  care  anything  about  them. 

§  21.  I  must  now  meet  an  objection  which  has 
perhaps  been  in  the  reader's  mind  some  time,  since  I 
said  (in  §  15)  that  the  proper  objects  of  enthusiasm  are 
enthusiastic  people.  The  objection  will  be  that  I  have 
made  each  man's  artistic,  intellectual,  and  moral  qualities 
to  depend  on  his  appreciation  of  the  same  qualities  in 
others,  and  that  thus  a  vicious  circle  is  made.  The 
answer  is  that  the  circle  is  only  apparent.  In  each  case 
the  quality  has  a  substantive  existence  in  the  mind  of 
its  possessor.  A  has  certain  definite  mental  contents 
which  we  call  art  or  knowledge  or  moral  goodness  ;  they 
are  not  less  definite  and  real,  and  not  less  his  own  because 
he  could  not  have  them  without  knowing  B,  C,  D  and 
others  who  possess  the  like.  We  may  illustrate  from  the 
case  of  love.  A  loves  B ;  and  the  chief  quality  which 
makes  B  lovable  is  that  he  is  of  a  loving  disposition, 
manifested  in  particular  towards  A.  And  so  from  B's 
point  of  view.  The  two  loves  are  mutually  dependent ; 
but  the  relation  of  mutual  dependence  does  not  destroy 
their  several  reality. 

All  this  would  have  an  important  bearing  on  the 
social  aspect  of  art  and  the  rest  of  the  higher  life,  if  that 
were  the  matter  of  our  discussion.  Society  is  not  merely 
the  field  in  which  we  exercise  the  qualities  of  the  higher 
life  ;  the  qualities  themselves  are  essentially  social.  And 
thus  we  see  how  mistaken  it  would  be  to  try,  as 
Henry  Sidgwick  once  did,1  to  determine  the  Ultimate 
Good  by  considering  what  a  man  would  choose  who 
found  himself  solitary  in  a  universe. 

§  22.  I  said  just  now  (in  §  19)  that  the  separation 
between  the  departments  of  our  higher  life  is  not  absolute. 
In  the  first  place  they  are  connected  at  the  root.  If  we 
cast  our  thoughts  over  any  of  our  artistic  actions  we  see 

1   Methods  of  Ethics,  ist  ed.  p.  374. 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  321 

that  in  them  we  exercise  not  only  the  special  artistic 
faculty,  but  also  a  kind  of  consciousness  which,  if  not 
moral,  is  at  least  akin  to  morality  ;  and  moreover  a  kind 
of  intelligence  which  if  not  identical  with  knowledge  is,  at 
least,  akin  to  it.1 

But,  notwithstanding  this  basic  connection,  each  of 
these  interests  in  its  ordinary  definite  form  is  mainly 
concerned  with  itself.  If  we  try  to  combine  two  of  them, 
we  run  the  risk  of  spoiling  both.  To  enter  upon  an 
artistic  task  in  a  spirit  of  moral  zeal  generally  impairs  the 
artistic  result.  To  quote  an  obvious  example,  novels  with 
a  moral  purpose  are  generally  bad  fiction  without  being 
good  sermons.  And  so  with  an  attempted  combination 
of  art  and  knowledge.  Any  one  who  has  tried  to  write 
philosophy  with  much  attention  to  style  knows  how 
carefully  the  style-interest  must  be  kept  subordinate. 
Otherwise  phrase-making  will  get  the  upper  hand  and 
truth  succumb.  And  yet  we  can  imagine  this  natural 
limitation  transcended.  We  can  imagine,  perhaps  on  rare 
occasions  meet  with,  objects  which  engage  all  our  higher 
interests  at  once ;  we  can  imagine  occasions  when  we 
could  put  forth  all  our  higher  faculties  in  harmonious 
co-operation.  The  possibility  of  such  a  transcendence 
helps  to  prevent  that  recognition  of  the  usual  separateness 
of  the  higher  interests  which  it  is  the  object  of  this 
section  of  my  essay  to  demonstrate. 

IV.  ARTISTIC  VALUATION 

§23.  We  come  now  to  the  questions  connected  with 
artistic  valuation.  I  wish  to  draw  out  the  full  philosophic 
import  of  the  judgment  that  a  given  work  of  art  has 
artistic  value.  Five  main  questions  at  least  may  be 
raised  :  (#)  What  is  it  exactly  that  is  pronounced 
valuable  ?  Is  it  the  work  merely  ?  Or  is  it  the  work  as 
the  expression  of  a  consciousness  ?  (£)  By  whom  is  the 

1  For  this  reason  I  coined  in  §  i  a  new  term  '  epistemonie  '  as  the  adjective 
of  knowledge  ;  since  there  is  an  element  in  both  art  and  moral--,  which  might  be 
called  '  cognitive  '  or  'intellectual.' 

Y 


322  HENRY  STURT  vi 

judgment  pronounced  ?  To  whom  are  we  to  look  for  the 
judgment?  And  whose  judgment  is  the  most  trust- 
worthy ?  (c)  For  whom  is  the  work  valuable  ?  A  thing  of 
value  which  is  valuable  for  no  one  in  particular  is  of  course 
a  false  abstraction.  The  valuable  thing  must  be  felt  as 
valuable  for  some  one;  and  for  some  one  more  than  for  others. 
We  have  to  ask  :  For  whom  ?  (d)  The  judger  who  pro- 
nounces the  work  valuable  must  have  a  standing-ground  for 
his  judgment.  The  ascertainment  of  this  ground  is  the 
most  important  point  of  the  whole  inquiry  into  value. 
(e)  What  authority  has  our  judgment  of  value?  On 
what  do  we  rely  in  meeting  those  who  reject  it  in  theory 
or  oppose  it  in  practice  ?  What  guarantee  have  we  of  the 
permanence  of  the  judgment  ? 

These  are  the  main  questions  about  value,  and  we 
shall  find  that  the  answers  must  all  be  made  from  the 
personal  point  of  view. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  I  am  only  propounding 
philosophic  questions  about  artistic  value  as  opposed  to 
others  which  might  be  called  professional.  If  a  painting- 
master  were  asked  by  a  pupil  why  he  thought  a  picture 
good  he  would  probably  specify  various  merits  of 
technique  or  composition.  He  would  be  quite  right  from 
his  own  point  of  view.  But  these  professional  matters 
are  external  to  that  inner  reality  with  which  we  are 
concerned  now. 

§  24.  (a)  One  frequently  hears  it  said  that  a  cardinal 
difference  between  a  moral  act  and  a  work  of  art  is  that 
the  former  has  no  value  apart  from  the  fact  that  it 
manifests  the  character  of  the  doer,  whereas  in  the  latter 
the  doer's  character  is  indifferent.  As  we  have  seen 
(in  8  1 6)  there  are  facts  which  lend  colour  to  this 
statement.  But,  in  the  main,  it  is  false.  An  effect  of 
colour  or  music  which  is  the  outcome  of  chance  is  never 
the  same  to  us  as  one  which  is  the  work  of  human 
thought.  What  we  should  value  in  the  work  of  art  is 
the  consciousness  of  the  artist  manifested  therein.  If  we 
fail  in  doing  this  we  fail  in  the  duties  of  the  critic. 
Perhaps  these  duties  in  their  fulness  are  too  onerous  for 


vi  ART   AND   PERSONALITY  323 

human  nature.  We  cannot  usually  trouble  about  the 
consciousness  of  the  tailor  who  makes  our  coat  (though 
the  higher  political  economy  tells  us  that  we  should),  and 
we  do  not  usually  trouble  about  the  consciousness  of  the 
painter  of  the  average  pictures  on  the  walls  of  the  Royal 
Academy.  But  it  is  only  the  limitation  of  our  knowledge 
and  the  dulness  of  our  sympathy  and  imagination  which 
keep  us  from  feeling  the  artist's  personality  behind 
his  work. 

The  consciousness  which  the  work  manifests  must  be 
of  the  distinctively  artistic  kind.  That  means  in  the  first 
place  that  it  must  be  vivid,  free,  creative.  Here  we  have 
the  mark  to  distinguish  art  from  manufacture.  The 
manufacturer  is  not  a  creator  but  a  copier,  a  reproducer 
of  the  thoughts  of  others,  or  of  his  own  when  they  have 
got  stale.  He  works  up  to  a  standard  externally 
prescribed,  and  lives  upon  a  lower  and  colder  plane  of 
consciousness.  Here  the  parallel  is  close  between  art  and 
morals.  Mechanical  conformity  is  death  to  both.  It  is 
the  chief  artistic  danger  of  modern  society  with  its  vast 
swamping  industrial  organisations,  that  crafts  tend  to  be 
carried  on  less  and  less  in  the  true  artistic  spirit. 

In  the  second  place,  to  say  that  the  consciousness 
must  be  distinctively  artistic  means  that  it  is  not  to  be 
confused  with  the  kindred  experiences  of  knowledge  and 
morality,  or  to  be  valued  because  of  moral  and  epistemonic 
elements  in  it.  The  arguments  of  the  previous  section  of 
this  essay  were  intended  to  obviate  the  possibility  of  such 
a  confusion.  Each  experience  has  its  own  quality  and 
its  value  lies  in  the  perfection  of  the  quality.  The 
interests  of  art,  knowledge  and  morality  are  autotelic 
interests.  What  the  quality  of  art  is,  cannot  be  defined, 
though  it  may  be  indicated  by  description.  It  is  an 
irreducible  fact  at  which  definition  stops.  All  we  can 
say  of  it  is  that  it  is  a  distinct  mode  of  appreciating 
men. 

In  this  relative  independence  of  art  we  find  the  meaning 
of  that  much-abused  shibboleth  "Art  for  art's  sake." 
Some  who  could  not  or  did  not  want  to  understand  how 


324  HENRY  STURT  vi 

art  is  akin  to  the  other  higher  interests  have  talked  as 
though  an  artist  were  all  the  better  for  being  a  reprobate 
and  a  dunce.  That  heresy  is  far  from  extinct,  though  it 
does  not  enjoy  the  favour  of  a  dozen  years  ago. 

§  25.  (£)  Now,  who  is  to  say  when  the  work  of  art 
embodies  vivid  consciousness  of  the  true  artistic  kind  ? 
Obviously,  there  is  no  one  who  has  such  an  opportunity 
of  knowing  as  the  artist  himself.  The  case  is  the  same 
as  in  morals.  No  one  is  in  such  a  position  as  the  agent 
to  tell  the  spirit  of  his  action,  if  he  would  only  do  so. 

There  are,  however,  well-known  causes  which  impair 
our  confidence  in  the  artist's  judgment  of  his  own  work. 
For  one,  there  is  personal  vanity.  The  artist  feels  vaguely 
that  he  must  have  produced  a  great  work,  because  he  is 
sure  that  he  is  a  great  man.  Another  cause  is  pre- 
occupation with  technique.  There  are  many  effects,  not 
very  important  in  themselves,  which  the  artist  is  apt  to 
prize  because  they  are  difficult  to  accomplish.  This  is 
particularly  common  in  music  and  painting.  In  times  of 
decadence  this  secondary  technical  interest  is  sometimes 
all  that  survives.  For  these  reasons  we  are  perhaps  more 
inclined  to  rely  on  the  judgment  of  the  artist,  not  at  the 
time  of  his  doing  the  work,  but  when  he  looks  back  on  it 
after  a  lapse  of  time.  His  consciousness  is  clearer  then. 
But  we  must  also  remember  that  it  is  feebler,  and  that 
new  prejudices  may  arise  to  obscure  old  truth. 

So  far  as  the  critic  is  worthy  of  attention  on  a  question 
of  value,  he  must  take  the  position  of  an  artist-at-second- 
hand,  i.e.  he  must  by  an  exercise  of  sympathetic 
imagination  go  through  the  creative  process  of  the  artist's 
consciousness.  The  insight  of  any  critic  is  limited  ; 
though  there  are  people  of  little  creative  force  who  have 
the  power  of  re-creation  in  an  extraordinary  degree.  But 
we  trust  it  because  of  its  comparative  immunity  from 
personal  prepossessions.  Still  more  do  we  trust  the 
verdict  of  many  critics,  succeeding  each  other  through 
ages.  This  is  our  nearest  approach  to  infallibility.  The 
ground  of  our  confidence  is  not  merely  the  number  of  the 
voices,  but  rather  our  conviction  of  the  organic  unity  of 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  325 

human  nature.  The  contemporaries  of  Sophocles  judged 
the  Antigone  beautiful  for  reasons  organically  connected 
with  Greek  life  ;  and  successive  generations  have  ratified 
their  verdict.  We  now  regard  it  as  true  for  all  ages 
because  the  long  consensus  of  opinion  shows  that  the  play 
appeals  to  sentiments  which  are  not  merely  Greek  but 
fundamentally  human  ;  and  we  are  sure  that  the  founda- 
tions of  human  nature  will  not  change. 

§  26.  (c]  A  valuable  experience  is,  of  course,  valuable 
for  some  person.  Primarily,  the  person  for  whom  art  is 
valuable  is  the  artist  himself.  If  any  one  asked  :  For 
whom  was  Shakespeare's  artistic  life  a  good  ?  the  answer 
would  be  :  In  the  first  place,  for  Shakespeare.  And  this 
is  not  an  exceptional  rule  for  exceptional  men,  but  merely 
the  common  rule  for  the  valuation  of  human  life.  We 
cannot  say  of  the  rank  and  file  of  humanity  that  A's  life 
is  valuable  because  it  furthers  the  lives  of  By  C,  and  D,  and 
so  on.  Nor  can  we  say  it  of  the  chiefs. 

But  to  this  a  necessary  supplement  must  be  made. 
It  is  essential  to  the  artist's  character  as  a  lover  of  men 
that  he  should  feel  such  an  interest  in  human  life  as  is 
inconsistent  with  the  selfishness  of  keeping  his  creative 
gift  to  himself.  He  must  at  least  intend  that  his  work 
shall  be  enjoyed  by  society.  Apart  from  this,  the  saying 
"  Art  for  the  artist  "  might  be  misunderstood  in  a  sense 
contrary  to  the  whole  tenor  of  my  argument.  In 
Huysmans'  novel  A  Rebours  the  hero  shuts  himself 
hermetically  from  all  contact  with  the  world,  and  lives 
entirely  for  the  enjoyment  of  his  aesthetic  feelings.  That 
is  just  the  sort  of  life  I  do  not  regard  as  typically  artistic. 
Artistic  experience  with  its  outcome  of  performance  is 
good  for  the  artist  in  the  same  way  that  a  saintly  life  is 
good  for  the  saint.  It  is  the  expression  of  an  enthusiasm 
whose  blessedness  it  is  to  spend  and  be  spent  in  the 
following  of  a  high  ideal. 

"  Art  for  the  artist "  should  reconcile  us  to  those 
apparently  painful  cases  where  artistic  work  is  lost  without 
contributing  commensurately  to  the  common  enjoyment. 
The  case  is  more  frequent  still  in  morals.  How  often  does 


326  HENRY  STURT  vi 

moral  effort  fall  unheeded  to  the  ground  !  And  yet  it 
was  good  for  the  doer  that  he  did  it. 

8  27.  (cT)  We  come  now  to  the  most  important  question 
of  all  :  On  what  ground  does  the  judger  stand  when  he 
judges  a  work  of  art  excellent  ?  Here  we  touch  upon 
the  ultimate  basis  of  artistic  value,  indeed  of  all  value 
whatever.  The  answer  is  that  he  stands  upon  the  ground 
of  immediate  personal  experience  ;  he  judges  the  work 
excellent  because  he  feels  or  intuitively  perceives  it  to  be 
excellent. 

Our  previous  discussions  have  shown  that  this  affirma- 
tion may  be  analysed  further.  Let  us  make  the  analysis 
by  representing  to  ourselves  a  concrete  case  of  such  a 
judgment.  Of  course  it  must  be  an  artist  judging  his 
own  finished  work.  Now  the  work  has  value  because  of 
the  human  character  embodied  therein  ;  character,  as  we 
have  seen,  primarily  of  the  artistic  kind.  This  human 
character  in  the  work  belongs  partly  to  his  object,  partly 
comes  from  himself.  If  this  sound  obscure,  let  us  make 
the  example  still  more  definite.  Let  the  artist  be  a  painter 
and  his  work  a  portrait.  Then  the  human  character  seen 
in  the  painting  by  the  painter  is  partly  that  of  his  model  ; 
and  partly  it  is  his  own  ;  for  the  portrait  is  Ids  work,  his 
interpretation.  The  portrait  in  fact  has  an  objective  and 
a  subjective  side.  Both  sides  are  known  to  be  excellent 
by  immediate  experience.  But,  for  the  subjective,  feeling 
is  the  more  appropriate  term  ;  and  for  the  objective, 
intuition.  When  the  artist  was  doing  his  best  to  paint 
that  portrait  he  felt  that  his  action  was  excellent  or  noble 
or  valuable.  And  he  recognised  by  intuition  the  excellence 
of  the  character  revealed  in  the  model's  face.  The  ground 
of  our  judgment  of  moral  value  is  the  same.  We  ask  : 
Why  did  you  judge  it  good  to  nurse  your  friend  through 
his  fever  ?  and  the  agent  will  answer  :  I  knew  by  feeling  or 
intuition  that  it  was  good.  On  analysis  we  shall  find  that 
this  judgment  involves  both  a  recognition  of  the  excellence 
of  the  agent's  friend,  and  also  a  recognition  of  the  goodness 
of  his  own  purpose  in  tending  the  sick  man.  Beyond 
this  point  analysis  cannot  take  us.  I  have  only  to  add  the 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  327 

caution  that  the  objective  and  the  subjective  sides,  separable 
in  abstract  statement,  are  not  separable  in  reality.  You 
cannot  appreciate  without  appreciating  somebody ;  and 
conversely  (if  the  tautology  may  be  forgiven)  you  cannot 
appreciate  somebody  without  feeling  appreciation.  That 
is  only  one  more  example  of  the  essential  subjective- 
objective  two-sidedness  of  our  conscious  life. 

§  28.  It  will  be  evident  to  the  reader  that  the  fore- 
going account  of  the  basis  of  artistic  valuation  is  a  form 
of  intuitionism.  But  there  are,  I  venture  to  think, 
advantages  in  this  particular  form  which  are  not  shared 
by  others. 

(a)  Intuitions,  in  general,  are  commonly  described  too 
much  in  intellectual  terms.  This  is  specially  noticeable 
of  moral  intuitions.  According  to  the  common  account, 
a  man  does  an  act  and  his  conscience,  supervening,  tells 
him  it  is  right.  He  sees  another  do  it,  and  his  intuitive 
faculty  is  similarly  on  hand  to  give  him  information. 
In  opposition  to  this  I  would  urge  that  there  is  no  such 
separateness  in  the  judging  faculty.  A  nurses  his  friend 
B  through  typhus.  He  has  a  feeling  that  it  is  good  to 
do  so,  a  feeling  impelling  him  to  the  action.  When, 
in  the  accepted  phrase,  his  conscience  tells  him  he  is 
right,  that  is  only  his  feeling-experience  become  self- 
conscious  and  articulate.  So  with  the  objective  side  of 
the  action.  It  is  A's  love  for  B  that  causes  A  to  face 
danger  on  B's  behalf.  The  intuitive  faculty  does  not 
thereupon  step  in  from  outside  and  pronounce  that  B 
is  lovable.  A's  intuition  is  simply  his  love  for  B  come 
to  self-consciousness.  I  have  taken  the  examples  from 
morals  rather  than  from  art  because  ethical  intuitionism 
is  the  more  developed.  But  the  account  of  the  matter 
would  be  on  parallel  lines  if  A  were  painting  B's  portrait 
instead  of  nursing  him.  Another  way  of  putting  the 
matter  would  be  to  say  that  the  artistic  intuition  is  a 
function  of  the  whole  self,  rather  than  a  separate  faculty 
in  the  self. 

(/8)  This  leads  on  to  the  next  point  in  which  my 
view  of  the  artistic  intuition  may  claim  an  advantage, 


328  HENRY  STURT  vi 

i.e.  that  art  is  not  left  in  isolation,  but  is  brought  into 
the  vital  system  of  the  individual  and  of  society.  Nothing 
is  more  unsatisfactory  from  a  logical  point  of  view,  than 
an  intuition  which  comes  from  no  one  knows  where  and 
issues  orders  no  one  knows  why.  Now  we  cannot  in  the 
strict  sense  explain  the  origin  of  the  artistic  intuition  any 
more  than  the  origin  of  any  other  primary  function  of 
our  nature.  But  if,  as  I  believe,  civilisation  is  mainly 
founded  on  those  kinds  of  unselfish  human  interest 
which  we  call  knowledge  and  morality,  it  is  easily 
intelligible  that  we  should  have  a  parallel  interest,  which 
we  call  art,  closely  akin  and  lending  powerful  support 
to  the  other  two.  It  is  intelligible,  too,  that  moral 
goodness,  intellectual  power,  high  vitality,  and  strength 
should  be  approved  by  the  intuition.  For  these  are 
prime  elements  of  welfare  in  the  individual  and  the 
social  system.  They  are  conditions  and  consequences 
at  least,  if  nothing  more,  of  an  artistic  disposition. 

(7)  There  is,  on  my  view,  no  difficulty  in  explaining 
the  variations  of  the  intuition  in  different  men,  different 
epochs,  different  societies.  A  lack  of  flexibility  is  the 
most  notorious  fault  of  the  common  intuitionism.  But  let 
the  basis  of  art  be  an  interest  in  men,  and  then,  plainly, 
artists  will  appreciate  those  forms  of  human  excellence 
which  actually  come  before  them.  "  But,"  it  will  be 
asked,  "  is  there  not  now  too  much  flexibility  ?  Have 
you  not  in  making  your  intuition  so  flexible,  destroyed 
its  unity  ? "  My  answer  is  that  there  is  unity  in  the 
intuition  so  long  as  there  is  substantial  unity  on  the 
subjective  or  feeling  side  of  it,  and  substantial  unity  in 
the  objects  which  it  approves  of.  Suppose  that  we  come 
upon  a  strange  artist  who  is  producing  work  which  he 
affirms  to  be  art.  The  work  may  not  be  quite  like  any 
other  work  in  the  world,  but  it  is  art  so  long  as  he  feels  in 
doing  it  as  true  artists  feel,  and  so  long  as  his  object 
is  akin  to  the  objects  that  true  artists  admire. 

§  29.  But  though  I  believe  in  intuitionism  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  intuitional  method  as  commonly  understood. 
We  know  Bentham's  amusing-  account  of  that  method  as 


vi  ART  AND  PERSONALITY  329 

applied  to  morals.  "  The  various  systems  that  have  been 
formed  concerning  the  standard  of  right  and  wrong  may 
all  be  reduced  to  the  principle  of  sympathy  and  antipathy. 
One  account  may  serve  for  all  of  them.  They  consist 
all  of  them  in  so  many  contrivances  for  avoiding  the 
obligation  of  appealing  to  any  external  standard,  and  for 
prevailing  upon  the  reader  to  accept  of  the  author's 
sentiment  or  opinion  as  a  reason  for  itself.  The  phrases 
different,  but  the  principle  the  same.  It  is  curious 
enough  to  observe  the  variety  of  inventions  men  have 
hit  upon,  and  the  variety  of  phrases  they  have  brought 
forward,  in  order  to  conceal  from  the  world  and,  if  possible, 
from  themselves,  this  very  general  and  therefore  very 
pardonable  self-sufficiency.  One  man  says  he  has  a 
thing  made  on  purpose  to  tell  him  what  is  right  and 
what  is  wrong,  and  that  it  is  called  a  moral  sense ;  and 
then  he  goes  to  work  at  his  ease,  and  says  such  a  thing 
is  right,  and  such  a  thing  is  wrong — why  ?  '  because  my 
moral  sense  tells  me  it  is.'  Another  man  comes  and 
alters  the  phrase,  leaving  out  moral  and  putting  in 
common  in  the  room  of  it,"  *  and  so  on.  There  is  a 
strong  element  of  caricature  in  this  witty  diatribe  of 
Bentham's  ;  but  he  is  right  in  his  main  point,  that  a 
purely  introspective  attempt  to  determine  the  content 
of  an  intuition  runs  the  risk  of  consecrating  what  merely 
favours  our  private  advantage  or  prejudice.  There  is 
nothing  to  be  gained  by  tying  oneself  down  to  the  intro- 
spective method.  If  an  intuition  is  generally  diffused 
among  men  we  can  ascertain  it  by  studying  their  conduct. 
If  human  enthusiasm  be  the  true  motive  of  art,  then  a 
study  of  artists  will  disclose  the  fact.  In  any  case,  this 
is  the  standpoint  adopted  in  the  present  essay — in- 
tuitionism  with  the  method  of  empiricism. 

But  we  should  be  quite  ignoring  the  distinctive 
character  of  artistic  experience  if  we  thought  we  could 
ascertain  what  is  right  in  art  by  mere  statistical  inquiry. 
We  should  be  neglecting  the  personal  affirmation  of 
value  implicit  in  every  genuine  artistic  judgment.  This 

1    Introduction  to  the  Principles  of  .Morals  and  legislation,  chap,  ii. 


330  HENRY  STURT  vi 

may  be  illustrated  by  contrasting  with  art  a  kind  of 
judgment  in  which  no  value  is  involved.  Let  the 
judgment  in  question  be  one  concerning  fashion  in 
dress.  "  Crinolines  are  becoming  fashionable  again," 
says  an  eminent  modiste,  and  we  assent  or  dissent  on 
purely  statistical  grounds.  "  Crinolines  are  beautiful." 
This  we  cannot  accept  or  deny  without  a  much  deeper 
affirmation. 

§  30.  (e)  We  come  now  to  the  last  of  the  questions 
connected  with  artistic  valuation,  its  authority.  We 
saw  that  the  valuation  is  made  by  a  personal  affirmation. 
When  we  meet  with  people  who  reject  our  valuation, 
is  it  merely  one  ipse  dixit  against  another?  Having 
regard  to  the  amount  of  Bad  Taste  around  us,  one 
might  expect  that  we  should  have  to  combat  a  large 
number  of  recalcitrants.  But  we  shall  see  that  this 
is  not  the  case  when  we  come  to  analyse  the  matter. 
What  is  comprehensively  called  bad  taste  might  in 
many  cases  be  more  appropriately  termed  rudimentary 
taste.  We  cannot  blame  a  savage  for  preferring  the 
music  of  the  tom-tom  to  that  of  the  piano.  The  latter 
instrument  has  simply  not  come  within  his  artistic  range. 
And  on  most  points  of  art  a  great  number,  perhaps 
the  majority,  of  our  friends  are  in  an  analogous  position. 
The  stigma  of  bad  taste  should  only  be  fixed  on  those 
who  choose  the  worse  when  they  might  easily  have  chosen 
the  better.  As  causes  of  ordinary  bad  taste  we  may 
enumerate  Fossilism,  that  is,  a  stupid  adherence  to 
artistic  forms  that  may  have  been  very  well  in  their  day, 
but  should  now  be  abandoned  for  others  more  adequate  ; 
Vulgarity,  which  leads  us  to  prefer  forms  conducive  to 
self-glorification  ;  Crankiness,  or  the  undue  insistence  on 
some  element  which  has  only  a  subordinate  value.  None 
of  these  kinds  of  bad  taste  has  any  special  philosophical 
significance.  Their  valuation  is  at  bottom  the  standard 
valuation  stunted  or  distorted.  They  have  no  strength 
of  conviction,  no  principle  to  oppose  to  us. 

§  31.  The  case  is  different  with  the  Decadent.  It 
is  true  that  he  proffers  no  positive  principle  ;  but  he  is 


331 

great  in  his  denials.  We  believe  in  life  ;  he  disbelieves 
in  it,  despises  it.  If  we  traced  this  disbelief  to  its  source, 
we  should  find  that  it  arises  from  want  of  affection  for 
his  fellow-men. 

From  this  decay  of  the  root  of  interest  in  him  we 
may  deduce  the  characteristics  of  the  decadent.  In 
art  he  is,  according  to  a  well-known  and  well-approved 
definition,  a  worker  who  thinks  more  of  the  parts  than 
of  the  whole.  As  some  one  has  said  of  Mr.  Swinburne, 
he  cares  not  for  life  but  for  style.  In  criticism,  where 
he  abounds,  he  is  a  seeker  after  subtlety,  an  amateur 
of  filigree,  a  worshipper  of  la  nuance.  To  him  the 
dexterity  of  the  word-artist,  who  captures  a  just-perceptible 
meaning  floating  on  the  boundary  of  thought,  is  more 
precious  than  the  first-hand  statement  of  a  fundamental 
truth.  Superficially,  decadence  is  the  comminution 
of  values. 

But  there  is  a  deeper  meaning  in  him.  Let  us  see 
if  we  can  trace  it  in  a  concrete  example.  The  following 
may  be  quoted  as  a  typical  decadent  appreciation  of  litera- 
ture : * — "  He  was  indifferent  or  contemptuous  towards 
the  writers  of  the  Latin  Augustan  age  ;  Virgil  seemed 
to  him  thin  and  mechanical,  Horace  a  detestable  clown  ; 
the  fat  redundancy  of  Cicero  and  the  dry  constipation  of 
Caesar  alike  disgusted  him  ;  Sallust,  Livy,  Juvenal,  even 
Tacitus  and  Plautus,  though  for  these  he  had  words  of 
praise,  seemed  to  him  for  the  most  part  merely  the 
delights  of  pseudo- literary  readers."  After  some  slight 
commending  of  Lucan  and  high  admiration  of  Pctronius, 
the  appreciation  goes  on  :  "  But  the  special  odour  which 
the  Christians  had  by  the  fourth  century  imparted  to 
decomposing  pagan  Latin  was  delightful  to  him  in 
such  authors  as  Commodian  of  Gaza,L>  whose  tawny, 
sombre,  and  tortuous  style  he  even  preferred  to  Claudian's 
sonorous  blasts,  in  which  the  trumpet  of  paganism  was 
last  heard  in  the  world.  He  was  also  able  to  maintain 
interest  in  Prudentius,  Sedulius  and  a  host  of  unknown 

1    Havelock  Kills,  Ajjinnalions,  p.    i3i. 
-  A  writer  of  religious  acrostio. 


332  riklNKY    blUKl  vi 

Christians  who  combined  Catholic  fervour  with  a  Latinity 
which  had  become,  as  it  were,  completely  putrid,  leaving 
but  a  few  shreds  of  torn  flesh  for  the  Christians  to 
'  marinate  in  the  brine  of  their  new  tongue.' " 

In  such  a  statement  of  literary  preferences,  to  which 
any  number  of  parallels  might  be  found,  we  may  discern 
that,  if  it  were  possible  for  the  decadent  to  have  a 
substantive  principle,  it  would  be  the  Excellence  of  Death. 
The  praise  of  death  with  its  allied  phenomena  of  suicide, 
pessimism,  and  the  glorification  of  sin  is  always  prominent 
in  decadence.1  No  writer  can  literally  and  seriously 
affirm  the  excellence  of  death,  any  more  than  he  can 
affirm  the  excellence  of  silence  ;  but  the  decadent,  moth- 
like,  is  always  fluttering  round  it. 

In  the  present  age,  when  conditions  on  the  whole  are 
favourable  to  the  higher  life,  the  decadent's  contempt  for 
life  is  not  formidable.  Natural  selection  is  always  refuting 
him.  But  we  should  feel  him  sorely  at  a  time  when  the 
struggle  was  all  up-hill,  as  in  the  centuries  when  the 
ancient  civilisation  was  decaying.  The  decadent  may  be 
inconsistent  and  despicable,  but  we  cannot  afford  to 
pass  him  with  a  sneer.  To  oppose  him  effectually  we 
must  be  convinced  that  there  is  a  supra-mundane  authority 
behind  our  private  affirmation,  behind  the  consensus  of 
society  and  the  brute  force  of  evolution.  We  must  be 
convinced  that  our  artistic  affirmation  harmonises  with  the 
spirit  of  the  universe. 

§  32.  The  same  feeling  is  felt  much  more  strongly 
and  with  more  need  on  occasions  when  men  are  struggling 
for  artistic  reform.  Artistic  reform  consists  in  a  fresh 
burst  of  enthusiasm  for  man  and  nature  prompted  by  the 
perception  of  valuable  elements  of  life  and  character 
hitherto  overlooked,  or  blocked  out  from  view  by  vicious 
tradition.  A  typical  example  is  found  in  the  English 
Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood.  To  call  attention  to  new 
artistic  truth  means  a  militant  revolt  against  the  en- 
trenched representatives  of  the  established  order.  This  is 
no  light  matter,  as  the  Prc-Raphaelitcs  found  ;  though  we 

1   See  L.  Proal,  I.e  Irime  et  le  suicide  passionnels,  p.  361  !>/«/. 


vi  ART   AND    PERSONALITY  333 

who  enjoy  the  fruits  of  victory  can  seldom  realise  how 
serious  such  a  struggle  was  to  the  men  who  fought  in  it. 
The  ardour  and  perseverance  to  carry  it  through  are  not 
intelligible  without  the  conviction  which  would  be  religious 
if  it  became  articulate.  In  the  struggle  for  moral  progress 
it  is  keenly  felt  and  loudly  expressed.  We  can  hardly 
conceive  a  moral  reformer  who  did  not  say  that  God  was 
on  his  side.  The  artistic  reformer  does  not  take  that 
tone,  because  the  matter  is  not  enough  to  justify  so 
tremendous  an  appeal. 

§  33.  It  is  necessary  in  conclusion  to  define  the 
relation  of  my  theory  of  valuation  to  two  points  on  which 
popular  opinion  has  expressed  itself  forcibly,  the  right  of 
private  judgment,  and  the  accessibility  of  an  objective 
criterion.  On  the  first  point  I  appear  to  harmonise  with 
popular  opinion  ;  on  the  second  to  disagree,  though  the 
disagreement  is,  I  hope,  superficial. 

Space  is  lacking  to  analyse  fully  the  notion  of  private 
judgment  ;  but  evidently  the  insistence  on  it  is  important 
mainly  in  questions  of  value.  In  the  settlement  of 
questions  of  fact,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  to  rely 
largely  on  those  who  are  better  informed  than  ourselves  ; 
nor  are  we  any  the  worse  for  doing  so.  It  is  for  liberty 
of  judgment  in  matters  of  value,  more  especially  of  moral 
value,  that  Teutonic  Europe  has  fought  so  passionately 
and  stands  so  jealously  on  guard.  What  it  is  that  is 
claimed  in  this  sphere  may  again  be  easily  misunderstood. 
It  is  not  that  each  man  claims  to  be  his  own  infallible 
Pope.  For  the  strongest  upholder  of  private  judgment 
will  admit  that  it  is  constantly  mistaken.  The  claim  is 
that  things  which  are  declared  to  be  valuable  in  the  way  of 
art,  knowledge,  or  morality  must  be  valued  by  the 
individual  with  his  free  personal  affirmation. 

When  we  come  to  think  of  it,  this  is  not  a  claim  to 
make  a  judgment  of  value  in  one  way  rather  than  in 
another  way  ;  the  judgment  of  intrinsic  value  can  only 
be  made  as  a  free  personal  affirmation,  if  it  is  to  be  made 
at  all.  For  it  is  essential  to  that  kind  of  judgment 
that  it  should  be  enthusiastic,  and  enthusiasm  cannot  be 


334  HENRY   STURT  vi 

felt  vicariously.  The  phrase  "  liberty  of  conscience  "  really 
means  "  liberty  to  have  a  conscience,"  since  a  conscience 
fettered  ceases  to  be  a  conscience.  So  in  art.  We 
cannot  commission  another  to  make  our  artistic  judg- 
ment for  us,  however  artistic  he  may  be.  To  put  the 
matter  in  an  aphorism  which  will  cover  the  whole  range 
of  intrinsic  value  :  I  can  let  another  measure  and  weigh 
for  me  ;  I  cannot  let  him  love  for  me. 

§  34.  The  popular  demand  for  an  objective  criterion  is 
strong ;  but  it  is  not  at  all  clear,  and  has  led  to  the 
formulation  of  some  impossible  theories,  such  as  that  the 
artistically  valuable  may  be  ascertained  by  reference  to 
Eternal  Laws,  or  Types,  of  Beauty.  It  is  hardly  necessary 
to  enter  upon  a  refutation  of  these  theories,  which  have  no 
longer  much  scientific  support.  But  it  may  be  remarked 
(a}  that  they  are  inconsistent  with  the  claim  to  private 
judgment  ;  (b}  that  no  one  can  ever  tell  the  world  what 
these  laws  or  types  are  ;  they  are  blank  forms,  like  Kant's 
categorical  imperative ;  (c)  that  even  if  the  laws  or 
types  in  their  full  content  were  laid  before  us,  we  could 
never  determine  artistic  value  by  the  mere  process  of 
comparing  artistic  works  with  them,  as  a  tradesman 
compares  his  own  yard-measure  or  pint-measure  with 
the  standard  of  the  government  inspector.  Such 
a  mechanical  comparison  would  grossly  misrepresent  the 
genuine  artistic  judgment. 

And  yet  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  belief  in  an  objective 
criterion  has  arisen.  One  source  of  it  is  the  feeling,  of 
which  I  have  recently  spoken,  that  good  art  has  a 
superhuman  backing.  It  is  easy  to  step  from  this  to  the 
doctrine  that  you  can  determine  by  religion  what  good 
art  is.  This  step  is  unwarrantable.  For  though  we 
might  say  in  Aristotelian  phrase  that,  in  the  order  of  being, 
art  is  based  on  religion  ;  yet,  in  the  order  of  our 
knowledge,  religion  is  based  on  art  and  on  the  parallel 
functions  of  our  personal  life. 

Another  source  is  the  practical  disciplinary  need  of 
having  a  recognised  standard  wherewith  to  put  down 
offenders  against  artistic  good  sense.  We  sec  the  same 


vi  ART  AND   PERSONALITY  335 

thing  in  morals,  where  those  in  lawful  authority  cannot 
always  be  debating  with  anarchists  on  first  principles. 
But  this  practical  need  must  not  make  us  forget  that  the 
recognised  standard  is  but  a  systematisation  of  personal 
affirmations.  We  must  not  confuse  it  with  the  chimera 
of  an  objective  criterion. 


VII 


THE    FUTURE    OF    ETHICS:     EFFORT    OR 
ABSTENTION? 

By   F.    W.    BUSSELI. 


1.  Ethics  as  the  borderland  of  Philosophy  ;  not  properly  within  the  domain 

of  Pure  Reason. 

2.  Depends  on  prejudices,  and  deals  with  the  singular  and  not  the  uniform. 

3.  Yet   it  should  be  examined  by  Critical   Philosophy  although  in  all   time 

Rational  Ethics  =  Abstention.  Ethical  Law  (unlike  the  Natural  sphere) 
is  only  realised  through  voluntary  effort  of  individuals.  The  Ethical 
agent  (if  he  debates  at  all)  makes  a  heroic  wager.  The  final  motive 
is  "  loyalty  to  a  cause  not  yet  won." 

4.  Present   state  of  Ethics   in    Europe,   confronted   with   the   certainties  of 

Science :  is  there  room  for  appeal  ?  Becomes  despairing  and  senti- 
mental, or  Quietistic. 

5.  Ethics  (in   a  wide  sense,   as  the  conduct  of  life  according   to  a   certain 

standard)  proceeds  on  certain  assumptions  which  are  necessary  before 
any  practical  maxim  can  be  accepted. 

6.  These  assumptions  are  peculiar  to  European  Ethics  ;   where  the  criterion 

is  popular,  and  the  emphasis  is  on  the  moral  life  and  on  ordinary  duties. 
The  Western  aristocracy,  as  one  of  effort  and  endeavour,  not  of  know- 
ledge or  asceticism. 

7.  How  arises  this  conviction  of  the  dignity  of  the  Moral  Life?     Not   from 

the  study  of  Nature,  which  contradicts  it,  but  from  the  sense  of  the  Value 
of  the  Individual;  and  from  the  certainty  of  Personal  life, —  our  only  sure 
experience,  though  beyond  the  reach  of  absolute  proof. 

8.  Ethics  as  a  Realm  of  Faith. 

9.  Necessary  assumptions  of  the  Ethical  philosopher. 


II 

10.  Ethical    systems    have   been    mainly   negative.       In   Greece,    tend    to    be 

anti-social  ;   where  active,  due  to   personal    influences  (Pythagoras  and 
Socrates). 

11.  Reflection  fails  to  give  any  sufficient  reason  for  the  common  behaviour  of 

men,  and   to  confirm  their  convictions  or  prejudice,  in  favour  of  the  life 

336 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  337 

of  striving.  Quietism,  and  abstention  due  in  a  great  measure  to  the 
Greek  passion  for  Unity,  in  speculative  matters. 

12.  Undue    emphasis    in    search    for   Unity  upon   Nature  (where   man    has 

nothing  to  learn  except  maxims  of  prudence  and  experience),  instead  of 
upon  History  (Narcissus).  Judaeo-Christian  ideal  transforms  Europe  ; 
because  interest  centres  on  the  individual  soul  ;  and  (in  consequence, 
not  in  spite  of  this)  devotion  to  a  visible  commonwealth  arises. 

13.  Abstention  is  the  result  of  independent  (or  Naturalistic)  Ethics,  and  the 

peculiar  tone  of  European  Ethics  is  due  to  various  forces  in  the  early 
centuries  of  our  era.  Ethics  seeks  to  attain  independence  after  the 
Reformation  (mainly  behind  current  practice,  and  with  almost  exclusive 
emphasis  on  self-interest). 

14.  Problem  of  Disinterestedness  is  in  forefront  of  Ethics  ever  since. 

15.  Two   divergent  tendencies    have    marked    nineteenth   century;    one    to 

Quietism,  viz.  Science  ;  the  other  to  Effort  ;  Benevolence  and  Social 
Reform,  Decay  of  the  Empire  of  abstractions. 

1 6.  All  modern  movements  aim  at  the  immediate  benefit  of  the  individual 

(whatever  form  they  seem  to  take),  his  freedom  and  his  comfort.  No 
serious  fear  of  abandonment,  of  self-determination.  Emphasis  on 
Personal  Relations.  Individualism  alone  can  lead  to  Collectivism. 

17.  We  fight  to-day  against  a  threatened  return  to  Oriental  monism  in  what- 

ever field.  Le  mysticisme  c'est  1'ennemi  ;  for  it  is  fatal  not  merely  to 
action,  but  in  the  end  to  thought  itself. 


I 

8  i.  THIS  Essay  endeavours  to  call  attention  to  the 
somewhat  anomalous  position  of  ethical  study  in  Europe. 
Two  points  especially  seem  worthy  of  note  :  (i)  that  Ethics, 
regarded  in  a  broad  sense  as  the  'science  of  conduct,' 
demands  a  larger  basis  of  hypothesis  than  any  other 
science  ;  and  (2)  that  the  ideal,  whether  of  social  work  or 
self-realisation,  whether  the  extreme  of  Altruism  or 
Individualism,  is  denied  both  by  the  earlier  and  still 
powerful  systems  of  the  East,  and  by  the  most  modern 
"  reformers "  of  ethical  theory  in  our  own  continent. 
From  the  confessed  obligation  of  personal  effort  and 
of  social  service  acknowledged  alike  by  Christian  and 
Positivist  from  a  religious  or  a  secular  standpoint,  a 
reaction  threatens  us,  in  which  participate  philosophic 
temperaments  so  different  as  Schopenhauer,  Von  Hart- 
mann,  Renan,  F.  H.  Bradley,  Nietzsche,  and  last,  but 
not  least  aggressive,  Mr.  A.  E.  Taylor.1  And  first,  there 
are  peculiar  difficulties  in  the  way  of  those  who  claim  for 

1  Problem  of  Conduct,  Macmillau,   1901. 
Z 


338  F.  W.  BUSSELL  vn 

Ethics  a  secure  place  among  the  Sciences.  Theology  can 
no  longer  be  termed,  in  the  strict  sense,  scientific  ;  although 
the  criticism  of  theologians  may  be  conducted  scientifically, 
and  in  scientific  language.  The  mediaeval  Schoolmen, 
rationalists  at  heart,  following  the  Alexandrine  lead  and 
possibly  mistaking  it,  endeavoured  to  lay  down  rules  for  the 
advance  from  the  lower  and  precarious  region  of  Faith  to 
the  certainty  of  Knowledge  ;  'just  as  the  Mystic,  emotional 
and  ecstatic  though  his  aim,  gravely  enumerates  the 
mile-stones  which  the  traveller  must  pass  on  the  road  to 
perfection,  and  employs  all  the  artifice  of  the  intellect  to 
silence  the  intellect  itself.  This  reign  of  uniform  (and 
regular)  law  prevailed  in  theologies  both  of  formula  and 
fruition  ;  and  no  sympathy  was  felt  for  the  guilty  impostor 
who  ventured  to  approach  and  to  appropriate  the  Summum 
Bonum  by  the  hasty  short-cut  of  an  unauthenticated 
method.  The  Reformation  put  an  end  to  this  tiresome 
and  exacting  rigour  ;  and  like  the  political  development 
which  ran  parallel,  it  has  issued  in  the  freedom  of  the 
individual,  solely  accountable,  in  the  matters  of  highest 
import,  to  the  inner  voice.  We  may  note  a  similar 
disintegrating  tendency  in  the  purely  moral  sphere.  We 
are  all  keenly  alive  to  the  distressing  insecurity  of  the 
domain  of  Ethics.  It  is  a  debatable  region  or  border- 
land of  Philosophy.  It  may  indeed  be  questioned  if,  in 
the  strict  sense,  it  is  a  province  of  Philosophy  at  all.  So 
far  as  concerns  the  inquiry  into  past  systems,  the  criticism 
of  rival  doctrines,  the  examination  into  empirical  psych- 
ology,— it  must  assuredly  be  considered  a  legitimate 
department  of  the  all-embracing  Master-Science,  which 
"  deems  nothing  that  is  human  foreign  "  to  its  survey.  But 
from  the  practical  side,  Ethical  treatises  are  dynamically 
ineffective  ;  while  from  the  theoretical,  they  do  not  belong 
to  the  domain  of  pure  Reason.  Viewed  as  constructive, 
Ethics  is  heavily  weighted  with  prejudice  and  prepossession, 
derived  mainly  from  tradition  and  religious  influence  ;  as 
historic  or  statistical,  it  may  be  impartial  but  can  hardly 
be  normative  ;  but  as  concerned  now  with  the  present 
condition  and  future  prospect  of  individual  and  race,  it 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  339 

must  needs  fall  below  the  calm  impassivity  of  a  theoretic 
science.  It  seeks  to  impose  what  may  be  termed  the 
categories  of  impulse  and  sentiment  upon  an  outer  world, 
which  seems  to  repudiate  their  sanction.  It  is  not  easily 
open  to  the  reception  of  truth  from  without ;  it  seeks, 
hesitating  and  uncertain  about  its  own  data,  to  fix  a 
precarious  sphere  of  influence  for  them  in  a  world,  which 
if  not  actively  malevolent  and  antagonistic  is  at  least 
blind  and  unheeding.1 

§  2.  Philosophy  attempts  to  interpret  the  relations  of 
the  individual  finite  consciousness  (or  rather,  that 
consciousness  which  "believes  itself"  to  be  individual, 
continuous,  and  finite)  to  an  existent  outer  order,  or  to  an 
outer  order  which  is  "  believed  to  exist."  To  be  without 
bias  or  scruple  or  prejudice  in  recording  one's  experience 
is  to  have  a  sound,  wholesome,  candid,  and  philosophic 
temper.  In  ethics  this  colourless  receptivity  is  impossible. 
Pure  Thought  cannot  be  here  supreme.  In  no  other  sphere 
of  inquiry  are  the  reason's  axioms  so  plainly  postulates, 
which  it  is  bound  to  shield  from  profane  inspection.  In 
self-defence  it  takes  shelter  behind  common  instinct, 
emotion,  and  tradition.  It  is  forced  to  appeal  to  a 
universal  impulse  or  '  intuition,'  and  it  confesses  that 
the  moral  sanctions  depend  on  a  sentiment  which  is  only 
cogent  because  it  is  everywhere  found  as  a  fact  of  uni- 
versal experience ;  not  because  its  arguments  are  intellec- 
tually irresistible.  In  all  sciences,  it  is  these  early  steps 
which  are  faltering  and  insecure  ;  but  Ethics,  in  particular, 
owes  everything  to  a  set  of  initial  assumptions  and  hypo- 
theses, which  must  to  all  time  remain  "  matters  of  Faith." 
Yet  these  cannot  (legitimately)  be  dethroned  or  reduced  in 
number  without  weakening  the  whole  fabric  of  convention 

1  Maeterlinck:  "  Kingdom  of  Matter  ":  Fortnightly  Review,  Oct.  1900.  "  \Ve 
have  learnt  at  last  that  the  moral  world  is  a  world  wherein  man  is  alone  ;  a  world, 
contained  in  ourselves  that  bears  no  relation  to  Matter,  and  exercises  no  influence 
on  it,  unless  it  be  of  the  most  hazardous  and  exceptional  kind.  Hut  none  the  less 
real  therefore  is  this  world,  or  less  infinite  !  If  words  break  down  when  they  try 
to  tell  of  it,  the  reason  is  only  that  words  are  after  all  mere  fragments  of  Matter, 
seeking  to  enter  a  sphere  where  Matter  holds  no  dominion."— This  is  very  French 
in  tone  and  somewhat  exaggerated,  but  it  expresses  well  the  sense  of  the  chasm 
that  cannot  be  bridged  between  'is'  and  'ought,'  between  Fact  and  Ideal, 
between  pure  Science  and  Faith. 


340  F.  W.  BUSSELL  vn 

and  society.  Reason  has  always  claimed  to  use  the 
emotions,  and  to  guide  the  passions  ;  but  it  has  usually 
succeeded  in  controlling  the  latter  only  by  expelling  the 
former;  and  has  settled  down  into  that  theoretical  lethargy 
which  refuses  encounter  with  everyday  life.  The  philo- 
sopher in  the  Thc&tetus  is  sure  that  he  can  define  ideal 
or  typical  man,  but  fails  to  distinguish  his  next-door 
neighbour.  But  in  Ethics,  truly  conceived,  what  is  of 
moment  is  not  this  typical  character,  the  uniform  or 
general  law,  but  the  singular,  the  special.  Ethics  must,  if 
applied  to  practice  in  however  slender  a  degree,  be  as 
empirical  as  character ;  —  built  up  from  guesses  and 
hazards,  accommodated  to  a  manifold  variety  of  individual 
character  and  circumstance.  No  two  situations  are  alike  ; 
and  it  may  be  questioned  whether  wide  sweeping  dicta 
(such  as  Kant's  maxim  of  Universality)  are  ever  consciously 
applied  to  solve  the  problem  in  any  given  case.  The  day 
for  the  empty  dignity  of  such  utterances  is  past.  Morality, 
still  swaying  under  the  blow  dealt  by  a  Calvinistic 
Naturalism,  seeks  to  build  up  its  shattered  palace  on  the 
concrete,  and  refuses  to  be  consoled  by  any  poetic  appeals 
or  abstractions  of  a  Justice,  a  Retribution,  which  is  no 
longer  actual,  nor  personified.  Thrown  back  on  its  own 
inward  experiences,  the  inquiring  Soul  finds  no  countenance 
in  the  natural  order  for  its  sympathetic  scruples  ;  no  aid 
in  discredited  authority. 

Reconstruction  must  be  mainly  empirical,  and  can 
never  again  become  systematic.  Any  future  scheme 
which  claims  to  be  comprehensive  must  be  either  merely 
casuistic  (an  attempt  to  drain  an  unfathomable  ocean), 
or  historic  ;  and  this  method,  so  far  as  the  ultimate 
sanction  of  right  and  wrong  is  concerned,  however 
instructive,  is  never  frankly  conclusive.  In  fine:  (i)  the 
moral  agent  can  never  be  purely  rational,  but  breathes 
an  atmosphere  clouded  by  passion,  emotion,  and  hypo- 
thesis and  illumined  fitfully  by  the  wandering  flashes 
of  the  Ideal  ;  and  (2)  as  dealing  with  the  contingent  and 
not  with  the  certain,  with  the  singular  not  with  the 
typical,  he  has,  if  he  act  at  all,  to  contradict  every 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  341 

precept  of  philosophic    apathy,  and    merely  compromise 
with  probabilities. 

Ethics  then  is  mixt  or  "  half-bred  "  philosophy,  and 
cannot  be  pursued  as  a  science  by  the  Pure  Reason. 
And  this,  not  only  because  it  is  based  on  certain 
hypotheses,  and  these  in  fact  if  not  in  name  religious 
assumptions,  but  also  because  it  is  concerned  with  the 
application  of  Law  to  individual  cases  ; l  on  that  best  but 
peculiar  kind  of  Law,  which,  though  it  is  regarded  as 
supreme,  as  '  categorical  imperative,'  is  yet  our  own 
creation  ;  depends  entirely  on  our  own  efforts,  for, 
unlike  an  edict  of  Nature  or  Science  which  precedes 
and  constrains,  it  awaits  our  recognition  and  our  en- 
deavour, before  it  can  come  into  being.  It  wins  respect 
and  allegiance,  like  Mill's  Deity,  by  its  pathetic  weakness. 
Now  it  is  more  than  doubtful  if  the  Pure  Reason  can 
afford  to  recognise  the  Individual,2  and  Ethics  (save  as 
the  very  meagrest  and  emptiest  list  of  general  principles) 
deals  with  nothing  else.  Every  individual,  as  such,  is 
unique.  Every  ethical  situation  indeed  can  be  brought 
nominally  under  a  known  law,  but  the  larger  half 
remains  outside  rebelliously  and  forms  an  exception  ;  and 
it  is  for  this  reason  that,  while  in  modern  life  moral 
relations  have  multiplied  an  alarming  degree  of  complexity, 
and  the  solving  of  moral  problems  has  increased  in  diffi- 
culty,— the  general  equipment  of  undoubted  maxims  is  so 
scanty  and  impoverished,  that  it  may  with  safety  be  said 
that  this  domain  has  received  no  new  complement  for 
two  thousand  years.  And  this  is  clear  from  the  most 
superficial  study  of  modern  Moralists  ;  for  example,  Kant's 
famous  maxim  is  clearly  implicit  in  every  ancient  writer  ; 
and  besides  wavers  between  a  truism  and  an  untruth  ;  for 
from  the  point  of  view  of  Moral  Law,  it  is  superfluous 
advice  ;  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  individual  (who  is 
always  unique  and  exceptional)  it  is  as  certainly  wrong. 

1  Where  the  law  is  subordinated  to  the  individual  interest  — the  revcrsr  of  the 
Natural  Realm. 

'2  All  Science  proceeds  by  eliminating  the  special  and  the  characteristic,  and 
subsumes  what  seems  like  exception  or  spontaneity  under  some  higher  or  more 
general  law. 


342  F.  W.  BUSSELL  vn 

§  3.  It  would  be  calamitous,  however,  if  the  foundation 
of  Ethics  and  its  practical  application  ceased  to  be  studied 
by  '  pure '  philosophers.  In  ancient  times,  when  the 
pursuit  of  wisdom  was  practical,  and  implied  adherence  to 
a  definite  rule  of  life  (somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  a 
monastic  order  in  the  Middle  Ages),  there  was  a  constant 
temptation  to  the  student  to  revert  to  theology,  either 
popular  or  esoteric,  for  sanctions  which  abstract  principles 
of  the  Unity  of  Being,  or  the  sympathy  of  all  Creatures, 
could  not  supply.  Philosophy  never  existed  then,  as  an 
impartial  search  after  Truth, — it  was  always  in  some 
sense  a  pursuit  of  personal  Happiness.  Each  School 
received  a  "  fast  dye "  from  the  temperament  of  its 
founder,  and  the  most  fertile  epoch  revived  inspiration 
from  an  exemplary  life,  and  not  from  a  coherent  body  of 
dogma.  Personal  bias  and  instinctive  sympathy  or 
repulsion  decided  the  young  adept  in  his  choice  — 
Plotinus,  in  his  TOVTOV  etyrovv,  after  his  first  lecture  from 
Ammonius  Saccas,  lays  stress  upon  the  fulness  of  definition 
already  in  the  mind  of  the  inquirer.  To-day  such 
universal  or  practical  functions  in  the  guidance  of  youth 
have  been  undertaken  or  usurped  by  the  State  (in  a  more 
exacting  sense  of  its  responsibility),  or  by  a  Church,  whose 
theology  is  not  in  the  strict  sense  a  Science,  while  its 
practical  usefulness  would  always  remain  independent  of 
its  doctrinal  postulates.  But  it  will  appear  the  consistent 
duty  of  a  Critical  Philosophy  to  examine,  to  question,  and 
to  confirm  from  its  own  realm  of  experience,  the  general 
principles  which  we  accept  traditionally,  on  authority,  or 
instinctively,  from  some  dim  notion  of  noblesse  oblige, 
or  from  some  correspondence  in  sympathy  between  our 
heart  and  an  actual  School  or  teacher  (as  in  Plotinus' 
case),  or  indeed  emotionally,  as  in  the  case  of  most  active 
reformers  of  Society  : — who  in  all  time  have  acted  so  far 
in  advance  of  any  rational  justification  that  like  Plato's 
sage  or  lover,  they  have  been  mostly  called  insane.  All 
Ethics  must  in  the  end  depend  upon  the  inward  motive, 
and  the  ulterior  sanction  ; 1  critical  philosophy  is  scarcely 

1  This  will  remind  us  of  a  parallel  in  the  thi.-ological  field,  of  the  ne\\  Ritschlian 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  343 

fitted  to  provide  the  one,  or  to  discover  the  latter.  The 
history  of  Ethics  will  show  us  how  much  fuller  and  richer 
in  content  is  the  half-conscious  moral  life  of  the  citizen 
or  the  parent,  since  the  dawn  of  history,  than  the 
speculation,  which  sets  out  to  explain,  or  professes  to 
guide  it.  How  vague,  how  meagre,  are  early  Greek 
ethics  !  how  infinitely  poorer  and  more  fragmentary  and 
disjointed  than  the  actual  life  of  any  individual,  taken  at 
random  from  the  cities  of  Ionia,  where,  as  human  nature 
is  at  bottom  unchanging,  we  might  reasonably  expect  to 
find  the  same  types  as  in  the  moral  or  social  world  of  to- 
day. Even  in  the  more  barbaric  times  or  regions,  we 
wonder  not  so  much  at  the  flickering  incoherence  of 
savage  life,  confronted  with  the  dangers  of  Nature  and 
the  problems  of  existence,  but  at  its  steadfast  hold  on 
certain  definite  laws  of  conduct,  and  its  noble  devotion,  at 
all  costs  and  hazards,  to  this  convention.  The  philo- 
sophical expression  or  explanation  of  morality  has  always 
lagged  behind  the  fulness  of  the  realised  life.  Morality 
concerned  with  the  Good  which  is  not  yet,  but  may  be, 
through  our  endeavour,  dwells  in  a  chiaroscuro  realm 
of  Faith  and  Instinct  ;  where  that  clear  light  never 
penetrates  that  is  wont  to  display  in  unmistakable  out- 
lines the  realm  of  Truth  or  of  Power,  of  mathematical  and 
physical  law.  Into  these,  antique  and  somehow  pre-exist- 
ent  to  our  thought,  we  enter  only  to  obey,  or  control  by 
obeying.  But  in  the  domain  of  ethics,  we  create  the  law  ; 
we  realise,  or  we  condemn  to  nothingness,  by  our  inaction 
or  our  neglect.  We  are  amazed  by  the  feebleness  of  its 
sanction  or  its  authority.  We  find  it  strange  that  Kant, 
in  an  exoteric  expression  of  naive  wonder,  should  confuse 
it  with  the  might  of  Nature's  unalterable  sequences. 
Heroism  is  irreducible  to  terms  of  Reason.  The  limits  of 
omnipotence  seemed  to  J.  S.  Mill  to  constitute  the 
strongest  claim  on  the  efforts  and  the  co-operation  of 
good  men  ;  the  heroic  soul  is  conscious  of  the  same 
attraction  in  the  field  of  ethics.  Its  decision  is  a  bold 

emphasis  on  the  First  Cause  and  Final  Purpose  of  the  World, — both  alike  hidden 
from  the  Speculative  Reason. 


344  F.  W.  BUSSELL  vn 

wager  in  the  face  of  probabilities  ;  and  it  has  been  well 
said  that  to  be  moral  involves  a  more  exacting  or  more 
childlike  faith  than  to  be  religious. 

§  4.  The  Ethical  philosopher  when  he  does  more  than 
arrange  and  tabulate  the  moral  virtues,  finds  himself 
compelled  to  preach  or  to  be  mute.  At  each  sentence  or 
maxim,  resting  on  the  precarious  base  of  a  vast  hypo- 
thesis, of  a  "  moral  purpose  in  the  universe,  to  which  I  am 
bound  by  allegiance," — he  dreads  the  Sophist  in  his  audi- 
ence and  expects  those  eternal  questions,  How  do  you 
know  ?  and  why  am  I  obliged  to  follow  ?  which  await  all 
moral  dogmatism,  and  can  never  receive  a  valid  answer 
from  theoretical  Reason  alone.  It  is  for  this  cause  that 
all  thinkers,  when  engaged  in  studying  the  motive,  and  the 
Sanction  of  right  action,  either  lapse  into  that  mystical 
language  which  is  a  sure  sign  of  the  default  of  clear  thought, 
or  under  cover  of  a  system  of  Egoism  or  Utilitarianism 
insidiously  secrete,  as  part  of  the  stock-in-trade,  those 
principles  of  disinterestedness  or  public  service,  which  we 
blush  to  examine  (as  part  I  had  almost  said  of  our  private 
physical  equipment),  but  for  which  we  find  it  impossible  to 
account.  This  has  been  the  fate  of  all  English  and  Scotch 
Moralism.  The  result  does  credit  to  the  heart,  but  perhaps 
neither  to  the  candour  or  the  acumen  of  the  Briton. 
Abroad,  a  feminine  and  sentimental  appeal  to  "  unphilo- 
sophical "  emotions  characterises  French  ethics,  wherever 
it  has  been  able  to  penetrate  to  really  ultimate  problems  ; 
whilst  pantheistic  Germany  seeks  to  found  upon  a 
mystical  Monism  a  definite  duty  for  the  individual,  whose 
separate  existence,  though  the  only  immediate  datum  of 
experience,  it  treats  as  illusory.  It  makes  no  kind  of 
difference  whether  this  tendency  is  religious,  as  in  Fichte's 
devout  and  latest  writings,  or  definitely  anti-religious,  as 
in  Schopenhauer,  Von  Hartmann,  and  Haeckel.1 

1  Andrew  Seth,  preface  to  Afiin's  Place  in  the  Cosmos  (pp.  vi  and  vii). 
"Humanism  as  opposed  to  Naturalism"  (as  the  aim  of  the  volume)  "might 
be  described  as  Kthicism,  in  opposition  to  a  too  narrow  Intellectualism.  Man 
as  rational,  and  in  virtue  of  self-conscious  reason,  the  free  shaper  of  his  own 
destiny, — furnishes  us,  I  contend,  with  our  only  indefeasible  standard  of  value, 
a;id  our  clearest  light  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Divine.  He  does  what  Science, 
occupied  only  with  the  laws  of  events,  and  speculative  Metaphysics,  when  it 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  345 

The  dominant  note  in  these  followers  of  Spinoza  is 
the  call  to  abandon  the  present  real  in  favour  of  a  meta- 
physical phantom,  which  to  the  man  of  average  sense 
seems  to  possess  none  of  the  qualities  usually  associated 
with  the  idea  of  True  Being.  The  mystical  goal  may  be 
either  the  Divine  Life  or  Humanity,  in  its  present  con- 
dition, or  in  its  future  destiny, — but  in  either  case  the 
sacrifice  of  the  known  for  the  unknown  is  demanded  ; 
and  thus  the  development  of  ethical  thought,  like  all 
scientific  thought  to-day,  follows  the  mystical  path,  and 
founds  itself  on  an  assumption  of  Unity,  for  which 
experience  empiricism  must  ever  desiderate  even  probable 
arguments  ; — on  a  denial  of  individual  worth,  which  how- 
ever deceptive,  is  the  sole  certainty  of  our  consciousness. 
The  whole  question  of  ethics  needs  to  be  restated.  In 
terms  of  Idealism  ?  Certainly,  in  no  other  way  can  we 
escape  mere  fragmentary  pieces  of  good  business-advice. 
But  of  an  Idealism,  which  refuses  to  consider  the  world, 
whether  as  fact  or  design,  except  as  subordinate  to  the 
consciousness.  "  What !  "  it  may  be  urged,  "  revert  to 
the  assumptions  of  an  '  anthropocentric '  vanity?"  I 
answer,  they  will  be  found  to  be  less  exacting  by  pure 
Reason  than  those  of  Monism,  debased  into  sentimental 
altruism.  And,  what  is  even  more  important  (for  we  are 
dealing  with  a  doubtful  department,  an  "  offshoot "  of 
philosophy),  they  alone  can  satisfy  the  moral  conscious- 
ness and  the  practical  needs  of  life. 

§  5.   Most  of  the  problems  which   disquiet  reflection 

surrenders  itself  to  the  exclusive  guidance  of  the  Intellect,  alike  find  unintelligible, 
and  are  forced  to  pronounce  impossible — he  acts." 

Again  :  "  Inexplicable  in  a  sense  as  man's  personal  agency  is — nay,  the  one 
perpetual  miracle, — it  is  nevertheless  our  surest  datum,  and  our  only  clue  to  the 
mystery  of  existence." 

For  the  precisely  opposite  view,  consult  the  veteran  Haeckel  ( The  Middle  of 
the  Universe}.  "The  Monism  of  the  Cosmos  which  we  establish  on  the  clear 
law  of  Substance, — proclaiming  the  absolute  dominion  of  the  great  eternal  iron 
laws  throughout  the  Universe.  It  thus  shatters  at  the  same  time  the  three  central 
dogmas  of  the  Dualistic  Philosophy — the  Personality  of  God,  the  Immortality  of  the 
Soul,  and  the  Freedom  of  the  Will.  Upon  the  vast  field  of  ruin  rises,  majestic 
and  brilliant,  the  new  Sun  of  our  Realistic  Monism,  which  reveals  to  us  the 
wonderful  temple  of  Nature  in  all  its  beauty.  For  the  sincere  cult  of  the  True, 
the  Good,  and  the  Beautiful  (which  is  the  heart  of  our  new  monistic  Religion)  — 
\vc  find  ample  compensation  for  the  anthropistic  ideals  of  God,  freedom,  .ind 
immortality,  which  we  have  lost. " 


346  F.  W.  BUSSELL  vn 

have  to  be  tacitly  abandoned  or  considered  as  solved 
before  the  simplest  point  in  ethics  can  be  discussed. 
Philosophy  regards  life  from  an  exactly  opposite  position 
to  common  sense  ;  it  surveys  it  as  if  from  the  other  end 
of  the  telescope  ;  the  ordinary  and  familiar  becomes  the 
most  abstruse  of  mysteries,  the  exceptional  and  startling 
shrink  into  the  simplest  and  most  easily  explained.  But 
Ethics  being  most  akin  to  the  common  sense  of  practical 
men,  has  to  assume  quite  as  much,  and  is  equally  unable 
to  explain  its  hypotheses, — unless  it  appeals  to  the  ambigu- 
ous and  oracular  decisions  of  Logic  or  Metaphysic.  There 
are  many  rival  schools  in  the  present  day  :  those  who 
deny  that  Ethics  can  be  studied  apart  from  Metaphysical 
presupposition  ;  those  who  pronounce  Ethics  entirely 
independent  ;  and  those  who  maintain  that  the  Meta- 
physical realm  can  only  be  entered  through  the  Ethical, 
and  to  complete  the  possible  alliances,  those  who  believe 
the  key  lies  in  the  investigation  of  Nature.  Into  the 
merits  of  their  controversy  it  is  not  my  intention  to  enter. 
I  only  desire  to  point  out  that  there  is  an  almost  universal 
agreement  that  moral  studies  are  scarcely  complete  in 
themselves,  though  the  precise  degree  of  their  dependence 
is  a  subject  of  much  discussion.  It  is  doubtful  if  in  any 
domain  of  wisdom  these  hypotheses  receive  final  and 
adequate  proof.  In  the  field  of  ethics  no  such  attempt 
is  made  ;  latent  in  every  assertion  or  counsel  or  maxim 
they  are  accepted  as  indispensable  ;  and,  nearest  to 
Common  Thought  just  in  this  department,  Philosophy 
is  here  also  much  beholden  to  ordinary  consciousness 
for  certain  necessary  '  forms '  of  belief,  which  are  the 
atmosphere  enfolding  every  moral  action.  Not  without 
reason  in  intellectual  Greece,  did  ethical  inquiry  come 
late  and  reluctantly  to  birth  ;  while  in  China  it  never 
advanced  beyond  the  childhood  of  detached  maxims  of 
utility,  and  vaguely  authoritative  gnomes  ; — and  to  com- 
plete the  metaphor,  in  India,  never  young,  morals  have 
never  quitted  the  single  and  servile  precept  of  absolute 
Quietism. 

§  6.   But  to   return   to  the   assumption  of  Occidental 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  347 

Ethics.  We  are  constantly  reminded  by  the  contrast 
of  other  and  more  ancient  systems  of  one  cardinal 
assumption,  which  will  be  found  to  underlie  all  Western 
Thought.  The  West  European  mind — the  fruit  of  the 
conjunction  of  Hellenism  and  Judaism  under  the  long 
tutelage  of  Rome — entertains  a  prejudice  (which,  as 
quite  beyond  rational  proof,  I  can  only  call  instinctive) 
in  favour  of  action,  striving,  conflict,  and  social  endeavour 
for  a  common  good. 

But  the  civilised  races,  who  form  as  Christendom  a 
united  whole  against  Barbarism,  and  can  sink  their 
differences  and  deny  their  religious  scepticism  in  face  of 
a  general  peril,  are  in  a  minority  ;  they  compose  but  one- 
third  of  the  whole  human  family.1  And  the  belief  in  the 

1  Letters  from  John  Chinaman  (1901).  "Our  civilisation  is  the  oldest  in  the 
world.  It  does  not  follow  that  it  is  the  best ;  but  neither,  I  submit,  does  it 
follow  that  it  is  the  worst.  Such  antiquity  is,  at  any  rate,  a  proof  that  our 
institutions  have  presented  to  us  a  stability  for  which  we  search  in  vain  among 
the  nations  of  Europe.  Not  only  is  our  civilisation  stable — it  also  embodies,  as 
we  think,  a  moral  order  ;  while  in  yours  we  detect  only  an  economic  chaos.  .  .  . 
We  measure  the  degree  of  civilisation,  not  by  accumulation  of  the  means  of  living, 
but  by  the  character  and  nature  of  the  life  lived.  Where  there  are  no  humane 
and  stable  relations,  no  reverence  for  the  past,  no  respect  even  for  the  present, 
but  only  a  cupidinous  ravishment  of  the  future — there  we  think  there  is  no  true 
Society.  .  .  .  Admitting  that  we  are  not  what  you  call  a  progressive  people,  we 
yet  perceive  that  progress  may  be  bought  too  dear." 

After  enumerating  the  natural  and  human  details  which  to  the  Chinese  seem 
to  bring  highest  moments  of  emotion  in  life,  —  "A  rose  in  a  moonlit  garden,  the 
shadow  of  trees  on  the  turf  .  .  .  the  pathos  of  life  and  death,  the  long  embrace, 
the  hand  stretched  out  in  vain,  the  moment  that  glides  forever  away  with  its 
freight  of  music  and  light,  into  the  shadow  and  mist  of  the  haunted  past,  all  that 
we  have,  all  that  eludes,  the  bird  on  the  wing,  a  perfume  escapes  on  the  gale — 
to  all  these  things  we  are  trained  to  respond,  and  the  response  is  what  is  called 
Literature.  This  we  have  ;  this  you  cannot  give  us  ;  but  this  you  may  so  easily 
take  away. 

''  Amid  the  roar  of  looms  it  cannot  be  heard  ;  it  cannot  be  seen  in  the  smoke  of 
factories  ;  it  is  hidden  by  the  wear  and  the  whirl  of  Western  life.  And  when  I 
look  at  your  business  men,  the  men  whom  you  most  admire,  when  I  see  them  day 
after  day,  year  after  year,  toiling  in  the  mill  of  their  forced  and  undelighted 
labours  ;  when  I  see  them  importing  the  anxieties  of  the  day  into  their  scant  and 
grudging  leisure,  and  wearing  themselves  out  less  by  toil  than  by  carking  and 
illiberal  cares  ; — I  reflect  (I  confess,  with  satisfaction)  on  the  simpler  routine  of  our 
ancient  industry,  and  prize  above  your  new  and  dangerous  routes,  the  beaten  track 
so  familiar  to  our  accustomed  feet,  that  we  have  time  even  while  we  pace  it,  to 
turn  our  gaze  up  to  the  eternal  stars." 

Here  once  more  is  the  ideal  of  the  East  held  up  for  our  guidance  by  a  dis- 
illusioned Occidental,  who  impersonates  a  Chinese  proselytiser  or  at  least  apologist 
while  using  the  poetry  of  Maeterlinck  and  the  romantic  pathos  of  Parker.  In  the 
eighteenth  century,  China  seemed  to  political  reformers  in  Europe  (and  with  much 
truth)  tounite  the'resolim  dissociabiles,  Imperium et Libertas,'  inaconstitutionwhich 
was  frankly  patriarchal,  and  a  social  uniformity  which  knew  no  class  distinctions. 
To  the  Idealist  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  still  more  to  the  Pessimist,  the 


348  F.  W.  BUSSELL  vn 

value  of  the  progressive  life  as  the  highest  is  denied  by 
the  rest  ;  just  as  the  dignity  of  manual  labour,  first  taught 
by  the  mediaeval  monks,  is  peculiar  to  us.  With  very 
imperfect  historical  data  the  philosophers  in  the  years 
succeeding  the  French  Revolution,  thinking  that  somehow 
they  had  arrived  at  the  culminating  epoch  of  our  race, 
hurriedly  set  forth  the  comparative  table  of  human 
records ;  and,  on  the  obsolete  computation  of  four  thousand 
years  before  our  era,  founded  a  scheme  of  the  Progress  of 
Reason,  and  placed  their  own  time  at  the  dawning  of  the 
last  and  happiest  period.  No  one  is  so  audacious  to-day 
as  to  prophesy  the  unerring  fulfilment  of  man's  hopes,  or 
the  approaching  realisation  of  an  earthly  paradise.  We 
are  aware  of  the  infinite  spaces  of  history  in  the  past  ; 
we  confront,  in  the  future,  some  accidental  comet  which 
will  whirl  into  fiery  oblivion  the  petty  systems  and 
commotions  of  our  Planet  ;  and  nearer  at  hand,  we 
recognise  a  serious  menace  to  our  Western  ideals  in  those 
teeming  multitudes,  who  seem  impervious  to  their  influence. 
Whatever  is  written  about  ethics  or  the  human  destiny 
must  be  tempered  by  this  wholesome  reflection  :  that  we 
are  in  a  minority,  and  that  our  view  of  the  world  is  not 
certain  to  triumph.  And  bound  up  in  this  view  lies  our 
earliest  assumption:  that  the  life  of  action  in  and  for  society 
is  the  highest,  just  because  it  is  the  only  one  possible  for 
all  ;  for  the  final  standard  must  be  within  the  reach  of 
every  one.  But  it  needs  but  a  superficial  knowledge  to 
discover  how  exceptional  we  are  in  this  sober  emphasis 
on  ordinary  duties.  Nowhere  but  in  West  Europe  and 

truest  and  profoundest  lessons  in  philosophy  wore  to  be  learnt  at  the  feet  of  the 
Pundit  of  India,  in  the  ascetic  renunciation  which  marks  both  Brahmanism  and 
the  system  of  Gautama.  Even  at  the  close  of  the  century,  virtue  and  contentment 
and  a  magical  authority  over  natural  forces  are  litter  to  live  in  the  single  unexplored 
region  of  the  earth  ;  in  Tibet,  whither  have  fled  at  the  visions  of  Fortunate  Isles, 
Hyperboreans,  and  'blameless  Ethiopians.'  But  this  persistent  attempt  to  dis- 
cover perfection  in  some  almost  inaccessible  fastness,  either  of  region  or  of 
philosophy,  is  a  sign  of  protest  against  the  mechanical  complications  and  the 
anxious  uneasiness  of  our  Western  life.  Nietzsche,  Maxim  Gorki,  and  Mr.  Taylor 
(Problem  of  Conduct],  may  be  combined  as  having  from  another  point  of  view 
condemned  the  fundamental  axioms  of  our  Western  ideas  of  progress  and 
civilisation.  (For  Gorki,  on  whom  has  fallen  the  mantle  and  a  double 
portion  of  Nietxsche's  rebellious  spirit,  cf.  Dr.  Dillon  in  Contemporary  AVrvVu1, 
February  1902.) 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  349 

its  offshoot  America  is  goodness  and  moral  worth  the 
criterion  ;  elsewhere  knowledge  and  supposed  spiritual 
gifts,  or  brute  courage,  constitute  an  unquestioned  primacy  ; 
and  we  may  ask  whether  the  undoubted  survival  of 
aristocratic  modes  of  thought  and  popular  confidence  in 
familiar  names,  is  not  due  to  this  trustfulness  in  the  power 
of  the  motto  '  Noblesse  oblige.'  Knowledge,  ever  since 
Socrates'  fatally  ambiguous  use  of  ^poz/T/cm,  has  elsewhere 
become  identified  with  the  Highest  Morality  ;  and  a 
privileged  caste  has  been  set  apart  with  the  approbation 
of  the  mob,  not  for  a  disinterested  guidance  of  ordinary 
affairs  (which  we  expect  and  receive  from  a  Western 
aristocracy)  but  for  an  idle  or  contemptuous  contemplation 
of  their  own  perfection  and  the  passing  show  of  a  universe 
which  has  no  meaning,  and  of  the  vain  efforts  of  others 
to  reach  the  goal  of  tranquillity.  The  Yogi  or  Sanyasi  is 
respected  by  the  people,  not  because  he  helps  but  because 
he  despises  them.  Now  our  Western  system  is  in  the 
true  sense  open  to  all;  for  it  alone  can  provide  a  sanction 
for  the  humblest  endeavour,  and  give  a  meaning  and  attach 
a  value  to  the  simplest  act.  Here  there  is  no  false 
aristocracy  (either  of  caste  or  cleverness),  no  doctrine  of 
reserve  ;  and  in  the  final  issue,  our  philosophies  and  our 
religions  stand  or  fall  by  the  verdict  of  the  vulgar. 

§  7.  But  in  face  of  this  dissent  among  older  civilisa- 
tions it  is  worth  while  to  inquire  whence  comes  this  firm 
conviction  as  to  the  value  of  the  Moral  Life.  It  is 
certainly  not  derived  from  a  contemplation  of  Nature. 

So  careful  of  the  type  she  seems, 
So  careless  of  the  single  life. 

Morality  exactly  reverses  this  ;  for  Duty  before  demand- 
ing the  self-surrender  of  an  individual  to  the  Common 
Good,  must  assure  and  convince  him,  however  dimly,  of 
his  own  dignity  and  worth.  In  spite  of  an  abortive 
attempt  to  unite  the  physical  and  the  moral  realm  in 
evolutionary  Ethics,  it  is  sufficient  here  to  assert  as 
obvious  that  '  Nature '  gives  no  such  sanction,  provides 
no  such  example.  At  a  certain  point  natural  philosophers, 
justly  alarmed  for  the  interests  of  morality,  overstep  the 


350  F.  W.  BUSSELL  vn 

inductive  method,  refuse  to  be  guided  by  fact,  and  take 
refuge  from  a  destructive  scepticism  in  emotional  appeal. 
The  two  realms  '  idly  confront '  one  another,  as  did  Plato's 
ideal  and  real  worlds  ;  and  an  impassable  gulf  stretches 
between  them,  which  no  introduction  of  sentiment  into 
physics,  or  mechanism  into  morals  can  ever  bridge.1 
Ethics  cannot  be  studied  (as  Stoics  studied  theology)  as  a 
mere  episode  to  physics,  as  a  subordinate  department  in 
a  larger  survey.  The  student  of  physics  must  perforce 
abandon  in  the  natural  world  for  a  moment  that  '  anthro- 
pocentric '  and  prepossessed  attitude,  but  he  will  resume  it 
again  as  a  necessary  condition  of  his  practical  life.  Only 
because  each  man  believes  he  is  an  end  in  himself,  can  he 
treat  others  as  if  they  likewise  were  ends  in  themselves, 
and  not  things  or  chattels,  but  persons.  This  may  be, 
like  its  complementary  postulate  of  Freedom,  like  the 
existence  of  the  material  world,  an  illusion  ;  but  it  is  one 
from  which  we  cannot  escape,  and  which  is  implied  in 
our  most  trivial  act.  Anarchism  and  Extreme  Socialism 
wade  to  the  Millennium  through  the  murder  of  the  Superflu- 
ous, whether  monarch  or  infant  weakling.  As  we  see  the 
world  outside  only  in  terms  of  ourselves  ;  as  we  have  no 
conception  of  what  it  is  in  itself,  or  how  it  would  appear 
to  beings  with  other  senses  ;  as  we  have  to  be  satisfied 
with  this  relativity  of  all  Truth  ;  so  in  the  field  of  practice  ; 
let  us  be  content  to  accept  this  belief  in  the  value  and 
equality  of  the  individual  person  as  the  final  foundation 
of  our  conduct  ;  hypothesis  indeed,  yet  unassailable,  for 
without  it  Ethics  is  impossible. 

§  8.  We  must  presume  then  that  the  life  of  striving, 
of  conscious  advance  and  progress  has  some  ulterior  sanc- 
tion, some  as  yet  hidden  significance  ;  that  to  be  merged 
in  contemplation  of  the  Eternal  order  is  an  unprofitable 
counsel  of  despair ;  that  the  '  single  life,'  with  its  pressing 
and  immediate  duties,  has  some  import ;  and  that  the 
social  fabric  is  maintained  by  recognising  and  conciliating 
individual  rights,  that  social  fabric,  which  can  only  be 

1   Notice  the  confusion  in   Professor   Huxley's  mind   in  his  strangely  illogical 
essay  on  Ii volution  and  Ethics. 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  351 

termed  an  end  in  itself  because  it  exists  only  for  persons. 
But  here  is  a  still  deeper  problem.  Are  we  entitled  to 
speak  of  a  person  at  all  ?  meaning  thereby  a  seat  and 
centre  of  activity,  free  and  spontaneous,  at  least  in  the 
final  decision  of  its  tribunal  introducing  from  time  to  time 
a  new  element,  a  new  and  incalculable  force  into  the 
tangled  but  continuous  and  unbroken  skein  of  natural 
causes  ?  This  is  without  question  the  greatest  problem  of 
our  time  ;  and  yet  from  the  point  of  view  of  ethics,  it  has 
a  merely  academic  interest.  Whether,  as  Lotze  suggests, 
a  leading  monad  bears  sway  as  some  limited  but 
responsible  monarch  among  lesser  centres  of  conscious- 
ness ;  whether  the  Soul  be  undiscoverable  to  closest 
scrutiny,  and  our  sense  of  permanent  identity  a  vexatious 
hallucination  ;  whether  the  old  traditional  dualism  of 
Spirit  and  body  must  be  modified  or  retained  ; — all  this 
can  be  of  account  only  in  the  theoretic  domain  of 
psychologic  Ethics  ;  it  cannot  enter,  as  a  perplexing 
problem,  the  practical  region.  We  still  use  the  old 
language  of  blame  and  praise,  of  moral  responsibility,  of 
conscience,  and  of  duty  ;  and  we  are  obliged  to  acknow- 
ledge that  when  questions  remain  balanced  by  equal 
arguments,  we  are  at  liberty  to  take  the  line  of  greatest 
attraction  in  making  our  choice.  It  is  a  feat  of  sheer 
legerdemain  when  a  moral  appeal  is  tacked  on  incon- 
sistently to  some  disproof  of  free-will.  We  have  to 
reckon  with  the  abiding  sense  of  the  community  ;  and  in 
apportioning  our  justice  in  the  public  courts,  or  over  the 
private  conscience,  we  start  from  the  hypothesis  of  this 
stable  point  at  least, — the  reality  of  the  self,  and  the 
persistence  of  the  ego,  amid  apparent  change.  We  need 
not  be  ashamed,  especially  in  this  doubtful  province  of 
philosophy,  of  seeming  to  shirk  ultimate  problems.  Ethics 
is  the  realm  of  Faith  ;  and  as  time  goes  on,  we  seem  to 
increase  rather  than  diminish  the  indispensable  articles  of 
our  creed  ; — but  the  additional  weight  is  no  argument  for 
surrendering  one  of  them,  for  they  grow  consistent  in 
their  very  paradox. 

S  9.   The  weight  of  hypothesis  which  the  Ethical  agent 


352  F.  W.  BUSSELL 


VII 


has  to  carry  in  the  simplest  moral  act  may  be  now 
definitely  described  under  the  following  heads.  He  must 
assume  (i)  that  the  world  has  a  meaning  or  is  capable  of 
bearing  one,  and  this  through  his  personal  efforts  ;  (2) 
that  these  efforts  are  to  some  extent  voluntary, 
spontaneous,  and  effective,  and  that  indifference  is  a 
shirking  of  responsibility;  (3)  that  social  or  racial 
progress  is  a  fitting  object  for  dutiful  striving  in 
co-operation,  but  that  this  cause  can  only  be  advanced  by 
recognising  the  unique  value  and  permanent  import  of  the 
individual  as  opposed  to  any  abstraction  called  the  type  ; 
(4)  that  from  this  point  of  view  and  from  no  other 
(whether  mental,  racial,  or  physical),  men  are  equal,  on  the 
side  of  moral  personality;  (5)  that  it  is  a  mere  poetic 
allegory  (and  perhaps  not  wholly  a  harmless  one)  to  speak 
of  the  progress  or  education  of  the  Human  Race,  since  to 
bear  a  real  meaning,  there  must  be  in  the  subject  a 
continuity  of  conscious  experience ;  (6)  that  as  the 
ultimate  stimulus  in  Ethics  is  an  inspiriting  sense  of 
freedom  to  do  good,  and  as  the  supreme  motive  will 
always  be,  sense  of  loyalty  to  a  cause  not  yet  won, — the 
result  of  his  action  to  the  single-minded  devotee  will  be 
Happiness  ;  (7)  finally,  that  as  the  aim  of  all  conscious 
effort  must  be  satisfaction  felt  by  some  one,  and  not 
the  fulfilment  or  (if  I  may  be  allowed  the  paradox)  the 
selfish  gratification  of  some  impersonal  Law,1  Happiness 
must  be  the  goal,  and  Duty  (or  the  recognition  of  Law) 
but  a  means  to  this  end. 

The  sole  ultimate  test  of  the  truth  of  a  system,  of  its 
value,  or  its  endurance,  is  and  always  must  be  the  warmth 
and  sympathetic  acceptance  of  the  conscious  personality, 
who  realises  by  his  efforts  an  otherwise  idle  or  empty 
Ideal.  Altruism  is  accepted  as  a  philosophical  norm  of 
conduct,  not  because  it  is  rationally  justifiable  (which 
perhaps  it  is  not),  but  because  in  experience  it  excites  the 
highest  feelings  of  satisfaction  and  joy,  and  "  brings  a  man 

1  "  In  what  way,"  asks  William  James  in  his  Will  to  Ilclie-cc  (p.  196),  "is 
this  fact  of  wrongness  made  more  acceptable  or  intelligible  when  we  imagine  it  to 
consist  rather  in  the  laceration  of  an  a  priori  ideal  order  than  in  the  disappoint- 
ment of  a  living  God  ?" 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  353 

peace  at  the  last."  "  Love  "  is  the  religious  term  accepted, 
as  implying  the  passing  away  of  timorous  or  calculating 
obedience  to  a  law,  as  external  restraint  is  the  dictate  of 
an  inconsiderate  and  irresponsible  Superior.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  disprove  that  we  have  a  perfect  right  to  evade 
such  a  decree,  like  physical  laws,  if  we  can.  "  Love " 
secures  the  peculiar  and  inward  approbation  of  the  Law, 
as  in  some  measure  connected  with  our  own  interests  ;  and 
this  approbation  is  the  ultimate  fact  of  interest  and 
importance  in  Morals.  This  connection  is  almost 
invariably  a  pure  matter  of  Faith  ;  but  it  is  absolutely 
needful  to  postulate  it,  as  I  cannot  believe  that  lasting 
approbation — sufficient,  at  least,  to  induce  practice — can 
ever  be  bestowed  upon  that  which  in  the  end  disregards 
the  private  and  eternal  interest  of  the  approver. 

II 

§  10.  If  we  were  to  divide  man's  life  somewhat 
roughly  into  its  passive  and  active  halves,  we  might 
call  the  former  Ethics,  the  latter  Politics.  No  casual 
student  of  the  history  of  moralising  can  fail  to  see 
that  the  negative  side  is  the  more  prominent ; — the  extent 
of  the  subordination  of  the  part  to  the  whole,  of  the 
forgiveness  and  forbearance  due  to  an  erring  brother  ;  or 
the  precise  limits  which  a  sense  of  uniform  and  impartial 
justice  places  on  the  caprice  or  the  desires  of  the 
individual.  Scanty  are  the  positive  maxims  either  in 
antiquity  or  more  modern  times  ;  and  if  a  wide  and 
effective  theory  of  life  has  ever  taken  place  among 
philosophic  systems,  it  will  generally  be  found  to  owe 
little  to  philosophy,  much  to  some  supposed  Divine 
legislation,  which  insisting  on  the  virtues  of  docile 
obedience  and  Faith,  permits  no  individual  scrutiny  or 
casuistry,  and  perhaps  for  this  very  reason  claims  and 
obtains  a  peculiar  reverence  in  the  strife  of  perplexed 
disputants.  If  we  consider  what  are  the  points  worth 
recording  in  the  Hellenic  systems,  or  the  most  striking 
features  in  the  life  of  their  founders,  we  shall  see  how 

2  A 


354  F-  w-  BUSSELL  VH 

small  was  the  encouragement  or  explanation  given  to 
active  life  in  Society,  either  by  precept  or  example.  At  a 
very  early  period  their  reflection  had  convinced  them  that 
ordinary  civic  duties  were  incompatible  with  the  cultivation 
of  the  (supposed)  highest  gifts  of  man's  nature.  The 
"  common  good,"  naively  understood,  even  in  the  earliest 
times,  to  be  the  end  at  which  all  must  aim,  is  never 
reconciled  to  the  single  interest.  A  gulf  separates  the 
two  worlds,  the  starry  heavens  of  Anaxagoras,  the  world- 
order  of  Diogenes  the  KocrfioTroXir^y  from  that  precise 
part  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  in  which  their  lot  had 
been  cast.  For  fellows  they  looked  about  for  some 
worthier  associates;  the  undiscovered  sage;  or  the  initiates 
of  a  sect  or  a  school  ;  or  the  Divine  thought,  that 
universal  and  impersonal  Reason  (of  which  both  God  and 
men  partook)  ;  or  the  forces  of  Nature,  as  the  river  that 
said  "Hail  Pythagoras!" — in  that  despairing  universalism 
which  degraded  man  to  an  exact  equality  with  the  other 
animals  ; — not  only  in  the  Italian  schools  of  "  totem  and 
taboo,"  but  in  the  cold  intellectualism  of  the  Academy,  or 
in  the  credulous  scepticism  of  a  Celsus.  Plato  makes  the 
official  and  public  duties  an  unpleasing  though  needful 
deviation  from  the  routine  of  that  speculative  meditation 
which  might  so  soon  degenerate  into  mystical  reverie. 
The  reward  for  this  distasteful  mixing  in  affairs  was  an 
undisturbed  leisure  for  tasks  which  if  not  pure  Mathematics, 
were  astonishingly  vague,  and  must  have  been  something 
between  Euclid  and  a  Rosary.  Cicero,  his  constant 
imitator,  with  a  significant  innovation,  places  the  recom- 
pense of  Scipio's  unselfish  patriotism  in  a  home  beyond 
the  stars,  where  he  can  watch  and  comprehend  the 
mechanism  of  the  world.  Aristotle's  interest,  like  Renan's 
in  public  matters,  is  that  of  the  Student,  not  the  Reformer; 
and  the  quietistic  tendencies  of  the  later  Schools  are  too 
well  known  to  need  special  mention  here  ;  no  one  (it  is  to  be 
hoped)  being  misled  by  the  Stoics'  parrot-like  iteration  (as 
a  mere  academic  commonplace)  TroXirevaecrOai  rov  a-ofyov. 
Where  a  positive  influence  is  exerted,  it  is  due  to 
character  and  personality.  Pythagoras,  though  anchoritic 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  355 

in  his  tendencies,  founds  a  monastic  brotherhood,  and 
secretly  guides  the  politics  of  the  Italian  commonwealths. 
Socrates  gives  a  certain  positive  content  to  this  empty 
though  luminous  disc  of  philosophic  morality  ;  Epicurus 
overcomes  the  gross  or  selfish  axioms  of  his  creed  in  the 
simplicity  of  his  life  and  the  warmth  of  his  friendship. 

§11.  The  common  conviction  of  mankind  (when  not 
too  highly  civilised)  is  in  favour  of  social  life,  with  its 
good-natured  "  give  and  take  "  ;  but  ancient  inquirers  who 
set  out  to  explore  the  reasons  for  this  conviction  were  so 
far  from  discovering  them  that  they  end  by  denying. 
Aristotle,  casting  into  the  mould  of  a  technical  definition 
this  belief  (shall  we  call  it  innate  presupposition  ?)  in  man 
as  %coov  TToXiriKov,  is  yet  much  more  enamoured  of  the 
peculiar  differentia  which  makes  man,  above  all  things,  £oW 
QetopTjTucov.  Whetherweare  to  believe  the  perpetual  legends 
of  the  intercourse  of  Greek  leaders  with  a  foreign  or 
Oriental  influence — with  Egyptian  Priests  at  Naucratis, 
Memphis  and  Meroe,  with  Magi,  Scythians  or  Gymno- 
sophists — it  is  perfectly  clear  that  Greek  ethical  study  led 
from  the  outset  far  away  from  civil  life  and  the  healthy 
turmoil  and  democratic  play  of  equal  forces  ;  that  the 
peculiar  temper,  inculcated  on  the  proficient,  was  one  of 
calm  and  resignation,  either  defiant  and  paradoxic,  as 
among  Cynics  and  certain  of  the  Stoics,  or  that  pure 
negative  pessimism,  which  found  its  last  word  in  the  ave%ov 
ical  ajre^ov  of  the  Roman  period.  Even  in  the  Schools 
which  accepted  as  "  goods  "  the  friendliness  and  good  word 
of  fellow-citizens  and  the  ample  equipment  of  a  comfort- 
able life,  which  pursued  some  definite  end  not  only  of 
vague  and  ascetic  moral  culture,  but  some  positive  branch 
of  study — even  in  these  the  ideal  sage  was  rather  the 
member  of  an  invisible  kingdom  of  Reason  than  an 
interested  or  responsible  member  of  a  corporation.  No 
subjects  were  more  frequently  discussed  than  whether  the 
wise  man  should  marry,  bring  up  children,  take  part  in 
political  life  ;  and  this  very  fact  shows  that  reflection 
could  not  (even  among  a  wholesome  people  like  the 
Greeks)  give  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  common  behaviour 


356  F.  W.  BUSSELL  v« 

and  conviction  of  ordinary  men ;  and  that  starting  from 
an  impulse  to  discover  and  confirm,  it  only  succeeded 
in  undermining  every  possible  sanction  altogether.  What 
accounts  for  this  peculiar  phenomenon  ?  One  fact 
there  is  without  doubt : — the  Greek  passion  for  Oneness — 
as  noticeable  in  their  theoretic  or  ideal  aspirations,  as  their 
childlike  delight  in  multiplicity  and  variegation  in  practical 
life.  A  single  transmutable  yet  identical  Substance  (or 
<f>v<ri<;')  in  the  world  ;  an  Idea,  which  binds  into  a  stable 
faggot  the  feeble  manifold  of  the  particular  instance,  and 
this  again  subsumed  under  a  more  comprehensive  idea 
until  at  last  Unity  is  reached  ;  a  rigid  crystalline  globe, 
in  which  not  only  the  individual  life  becomes  illusion, 
but  even  the  familiar  experience  of  motion  and  of  change  ; 
a  kingdom  of  No^ra,  which  is  almost  one  with  the 
individual  thinking  spirit  as  opOos  \6yos,  fypowria-is,  and 
which  is  reached  first  by  divesting  the  object  thought, 
of  all  garments  belonging  to  its  position  in  time  and 
space,  of  all  specific  differentiae  or  idiosyncrasies,  until  the 
clear  but  attenuated  outline  of  its  inner  essence  comes  to 
view  ;  next,  by  a  parallel  process  of  de-qualification  in 
the  subject,  wherein  the  thinking  mind  abandons,  so  as 
to  attain  truth,  the  cold  dualism  of  knowledge  for  the 
warm  glow  of  immediate  union,  or  at  least  of  inter- 
penetration  : — such  are  the  forms  of  this  Hellenic  Monism. 
Epicurus  alone,  nearest  to  common  life  and  thought  in 
spite  of  his  pretentious  style,1  is  the  sole  representative 
who  absolutely  and  of  set  purpose  discards  all  pretence  to 
Unity,  to  give  free  play  to  the  individual  caprice.  As  he 
pertinently  remarks,  "It  would  be  a  slight  service  to  set 
free  the  mind  from  terror  of  divine  forces,  to  fetter  it  anew 
in  a  grosser  servitude  to  inexorable  physical  Law.  For 
you  may  have  hopes  of  conciliating  the  one,  but  the  other 
you  cannot  escape." 

§  i  2.   And   we  must  also  observe  that  owing  to  the 
desire  for  a  comprehensive  but  vague  unity  *  either  of  Law, 

1  For  the  <ra<pr]s  of  Diogenes  Laertius  must  be  ironical. 

2  To  a  Soul  possessed  of  this  craving  for  unity,  rest  is  impossible  until  the  final 
goal  is  reached.      The  State,  the  Fatherland,  is  but  a  phase,  and  gives  way  to  a 

Xij  or  to  Nature.      The  eighteenth  century  is  much  to  blame  ;  one  of 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  357 

or  Force,  or  Reason,  the  Greek  ethical  student  threw 
himself  into  the  arms  of  Nature,  and  refused  to  recognise 
that  in  history  alone  can  man  find  himself  mirrored. 
Man's  place  in  the  great  commonwealth  of  natural  order, 
his  peculiar  function  and  differentia — this  was  the  object 
of  their  search.  Now  the  essence  of  Nature  (as  conceived 
by  the  Greeks)  is  to  be  unchanging  through  change,  to 
exhibit  no  conscious  progress  towards  a  goal,  to  be 
indifferent  to  historical  development.  The  desire  of  the 
Schools  is  not  to  found  an  ethics  of  casuistry  to  help  the 
doubting  in  critical  circumstance,  but  to  discover  a  "typical" 
excellence  or  perfection,  towards  which  all  who  are  capable 
should  strive.  Reason  unfalteringly  proclaimed  that  the 
exercise  and  the  discipline  of  her  own  powers  was  alone 
a  suitable  task  ;  and  the  rarefied  and  shadowy  form  of  the 
abnegating  Sage  hovers  mournfully  over  the  entire  period, 
as  the  supreme  TLapd8ei<y^a  for  imitation,  though  they 
allowed  with  regrets  that  it  had  never  been  realised. 
Gazing  like  Narcissus  into  the  vague  mysteries  of  a 
physical  or  spiritual  universe,  and  seeing  therein  a  faint 
semblance  of  themselves  (though  lacking  all  realness  or 
positive  content),  pining  for  this  image,  perversely  shun- 
ning the  companionship  of  grosser  mortals,  they  ended 
by  taking  the  "  salto  mortale "  into  the  chilly  waters, 
finding  alas  !  unlike  Hylas,  no  Naiads  beneath  the 
surface  to  welcome  them.  I  have  elsewhere  pointed 
out l  the  peculiar  momentousness  of  the  succession  of 
the  Judaeo-Christian  ideal  of  life  to  the  Classical.  On 
this  modern  Europe  has  founded  her  principles  and  her 
institutions,  with  her  signal  and  vigorous  hold  on  social 
life,  on  present  duties,  on  the  duty  and  the  happiness 
of  effort  in  whatever  direction.  Many  before  Nietzsche 
(who  cannot  be  styled  an  original  thinker)  have  complained 

its  children,  Michelet,  perhaps  sunk  deepest  in  superstitious  veneration  for  abstract 
norms,  writes  in  his  book  (Nos  Fils,  Introd.  xii)  :  "II  faut  que  le  jeune  ame  ait 
un  substantiel  aliment.  II  y  faut  une  chose  vivante.  Quelle  chose  ?  La  Patrie, 
son  ame,  son  histoire,  La  tradition  nationale,  La  Nature,  Universelle  Patrie. 
Voila  une  nourriture  qui  rejouira  remplira  le  cosur  de  1'enfant."  One  of  the  most 
hopeful  features  of  the  new  century  is  the  general  discredit  that  has  come  over 
these  mischievous  assurances  of  a  vague  and  sentimental  Realism. 
1  School  of  Plato,  Book  iii.  "Judaism." 


358  F.  W.  BUSSELL 


VII 


of  the  feminine  character  of  Christian  morality.  The 
virtues  seem  at  first  sight  all  negative  and  ascetic  ;  pas- 
sivity is  the  end  or  re'Ao?  in  the  religious  life  of  grace, 
and  in  daily  patient  intercourse  with  a  scoffing  and 
unbelieving  world.  The  hermit -life  rather  than  the 
cenobitic  was  the  higher  ideal  of  the  first  three  centuries. 
But  hardly  suspected  under  bishops  and  clergy,  a  busy 
but  silent  transformation  of  a  decadent  age  was  proceed- 
ing ;  and  may  we  not  ask  if  Greek  and  Indian  examples 
of  fortitude,  constancy,  and  retirement  were  not  largely 
influential  ?  With  the  earliest  promise  of  probable  power 
in  the  secular  sphere,  with  the  conviction  of  the  delay  in  the 
Second  Advent,  the  ideal  insensibly  changes.  Through- 
out the  Middle  Ages  (though  the  devout  mystic  may 
possibly  regret  the  degeneracy)  we  may  trace  the  new 
value  and  ennoblement  of  ordinary  duties  and  of  busi- 
ness, the  consecration  of  matter  and  of  effort.  While 
still  recognising  a  hierarchy  of  ideals,  the  Church  did 
not  deny  the  worth  of  the  lower ;  while  believing  that 
humble  Faith  could  be  transcended  in  knowledge  or 
lost  in  the  actual  Vision,  she  still  paid  honour  to  simple 
and  ignorant  goodness.  Now  this  strenuous  interference 
in  active  life  and  government  (sometimes  deprecated  by 
the  secular  spirit,  always  regretted  by  the  devotional)  is 
due  to  a  fundamental  article  in  the  new  creed,  "  that  the 
Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  and  not  man  for  the  Sabbath." 
It  contradicts  the  Realism  which  rendered  nugatory  much 
of  Greek  thought  and  much  of  mediaeval  rationalism.  A 
new  form  of  teleology  (not  unlike  the  Socratic)  had  held 
the  world  of  Nature  to  be  for  man's  use,  his  trial,  discipline, 
and  development.  The  entire  emphasis  is  removed  from 
this  indifferent  background  of  our  efforts  to  the  fortunes  of 
the  individual  Soul,  or  the  Divine  edicts  concerning  it. 
At  first,  interest  is  mainly  concerned  with  a  transcendental 
doctrine  of  pre-natal  sin  and  its  consequence,  and  a  Divine 
fiat  of  mercy  or  of  reprobation.  It  soon  centres  round 
the  prosperity  of  a  visible  state,  with  sure  foundations, 
and  a  goal  well  within  view.  Instead  of  the  'cosmic 
emotion  '  of  Greece  in  face  of  the  marvel  of  the  General 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  359 

Order,  arises  a  belief  in  the  progress  of  a  tangible  kingdom, 
ruled  by  an  absent  head  through  an  inspired  vicegerent. 
This  thought  inspired  most  of  the  self-devotion  of  those 
ages,  for  if  you  preach  Unity  you  will  not  get  it,  and  the 
average  man  will  only  work  loyally  for  a  cause  to  which 
he  knows  himself  to  be  superior.  The  clue  to  the  meaning 
of  man  and  a  justification  of  his  efforts  here,  is  found  not 
in  Nature,  but  in  history.  Now  Judaism  and  Christianity 
are  the  only  two  religions  in  which  the  historical  element 
predominates  over  the  transcendent. d  and  the  dogmatic  ; 
and  in  consequence  the  only  ones  in  which  the  individual 
finds  a  significance  and  a  place,  and  an  assurance  of  his 
abiding  value.1 

§13.  In  this  brief  survey  of  ethical  thought  down  to 
the  opening  promises  of  modern  philosophy,  we  have  seen 
how  the  independent  study  of  ethics  has  tended  to  throw 
back  the  student  on  himself,  alienate  him  from  the  common 
life,  the  world  of  society  or  particulars,  and  concentrate 
his  attention  on  a  typical  and  in  effect  unattainable 
perfection,  derived  from  an  idealistic  view  of  the  Universe ; 
sometimes  gladdening  his  solitariness  with  hopes  of  higher 
companionship,  but  always  encouraging  him  to  wait  in 
passive  expectancy  the  coming  of  heavenly  visitants. 
Meantime,  the  unreflecting  or  the  docile,  have  been 
content  to  go  about  their  ordinary  duties,  secure  in  certain 
axioms  (unexamined  though  they  be),  derived  from  ex- 
perience of  life,  from  tradition,  from  public  opinion,  or 
from  early  training,  based  on  a  revelation  which  they 
believed  Divine.  The  Feud  of  the  vulgar  with  philosophy 
was  at  least  justified  so  far  as  they  saw  in  these  studies 
a  pretext  for  abstention,  and  for  an  idleness  that  was 
often  dissolute  and  indecent  ;  which  shocked  and  derided 
rather  than  confirmed  those  common  prejudices,  emotions, 

1  Deussen,  writing  on  Indian  Philosophy,  has  remarked:  "As  surely  as  the 
Will  and  not  the  Intellect  is  the  centre  of  a  man's  nature,  so  surely  must  the 
pre-eminence  be  assigned  to  Christianity,  in  that  its  demand  for  a  renewal  of 
the  Will  is  peculiarly  vital  and  essential.  But  as  certainly  as  man  is  not  mere 
Will  hut  Intellect  besides,  so  certainly  will  that  Christian  renewal  of  the  Will 
reveal  itself  on  the  other  side  as  a  renewal  of  knowledge,  just  as  the  Upanishads 
teach."  Thus  in  the  New  Testament  and  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East,  "  these 
two  noblest  products  of  the  religious  consciousness  of  mankind,"  he  reconciles 
Bfupia  and  Trpa^ts,  and  Aquinas  and  Duns  Scotus. 


360  F.  W.  BUSSELL  VH 

and  sentiments,  upon  which  was  based  even  the  most  rudi- 
mentary of  Greek  commonwealths.  The  union  of  Ethics 
(as  the  negative  side)  with  Politics  (as  the  art  of  practical 
life  in  Society)  was  the  result  of  various  forces  at  work 
in  the  early  centuries  of  our  era.  The  apparent  quiescence 
of  early  Christian  Society  was  but  a  period  of  feigning  of 
idleness,  a  reserving  of  energy,  or  a  new  storing  of  power. 
The  union  of  the  two  spheres  of  the  Secular  and  the 
Sacred  under  a  single  authority  brought  in  for  a  time  a 
conciliation  of  interests,  the  common  good  and  the  unit's 
welfare.  The  Roman  Church  might  elevate  the  contem- 
plative virtues,  following  Aristotle,  as  a  counsel  of  perfection  ; 
but  it  never  neglected  to  guide,  indeed  to  interfere  with 
life  in  its  minutest  detail.1  But  with  the  division  of 
provinces  in  the  growing  spirit  of  independence — a  division 
which  we  unhesitatingly  assert  to  be  a  final,  conclusive, 
and  salutary  conquest  of  the  human  mind — came  a  new 
attempt  to  discover  an  independent  (naturalistic  or 
egoistic)  basis  of  moral  conduct  ;  and  to  free  from  an 
irksome  villeinage,  not  merely  science,  but  conduct. 
Beginning  once  more  in  vacua,  the  early  attempts  at 
systematising  moral  behaviour  astonish  us  by  their  crude- 
ness,  their  inferiority  to  current  practice,  their  niggard 
calculation  of  self-interest,  their  ignorance  of  human 
nature.  These  philosophers,  weighted  (like  Huxley  in 
more  modern  times)  with  the  doctrine  of  Original  Sin, 
could  conceive  of  no  good  in  human  nature.  Each  man 
was  a  "  child  of  wrath "  ;  a  grasping  yet  pusillanimous 
savage,  whose  quarrelsomeness  threatened  the  race  with 
extinction,  had  not  a  covenant  of  fear,  to  impose  bounds 
on  this  fatal  liberty,  been  framed  in  some  mythical  age. 
Self-interest  could  be  the  sole  motive  for  action  ;  and 
government,  religion,  and  the  control  of  public  opinion, 
were  but  outward  restraints,  necessary  indeed  to  the 
welfare  of  the  majority  called  the  State,  but  awakening 

1  Heine  (Religion  and  Philosophy  in  Germany]  and  most  historians  of 
philosophy  are  extraordinarily  at  fault  in  estimating  medieval  aims  and  tendencies. 
To  take  Aquinas  and  Honaventura  as  types  of  the  whole  age  is  as  great  a  mistake 
as  to  take  Huysmans  or  (on  another  level)  d'Annunzio  as  specimens  of  the  aspira- 
tions of  all  French  or  all  the  Italians. 


YII  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  361 

no  sympathetic  echo,  certainly  no  loyal  devotion,  in  the 
heart  of  the  individual.  They  owed  their  origin  to  that 
defect  of  human  nature  (or  the  universal  order)  which 
prevented  in  the  conflict  of  equal1  and  unyielding  interests 
the  attainment  of  personal  happiness  in  supreme  selfishness 
and  irresponsibility.  While  Law,  civil  and  ecclesiastical, 
while  government,  arbitrary  or  democratic,  with  the  whole 
machine  of  social  intercourse,  pursued  the  even  and 
unreflecting  tenor  of  their  way,  and  allowed  no  doubts 
or  sophistries  to  interfere  with  the  orderliness  of  civilised 
society, — the  Philosopher,  ignorant  or  careless  alike  of  his 
own  inner  psychology  or  of  man's  historic  development, 
stood  helpless  and  discouraged  when  confronted  with  the 
simplest  moral  action.  He  searches  for  the  spring  of 
action  amid  the  most  universal  and  brutish  of  our  natural 
instincts  (that  of  self-preservation  at  all  costs).  Failing 
to  discover  it,  he  was  in  the  end  compelled  to  call  in  the 
aid  of  an  inexplicable  and  arbitrary  moral  law  imposed 
by  Divine  Legislation,  whose  sanctions  (especially  after 
the  failure  and  abandonment  of  religious  persecution) 
remained  ambiguous,  or  were  relegated  to  the  somewhat 
uncertain  sphere  of  a  future  life.  So  impotent  were  the 
pretentions  of  Ethics  to  independence  at  that  period.  It 
is  far  from  my  purpose  to  refuse  to  Philosophy  an  ultimate 
and  honourable  alliance  with  a  religious  view  of  the  world, 
but  it  is  mere  weakness  to  take  refuge  so  hurriedly  in 
the  Divine. 

§  14.  The  Greeks,  starting  with  the  obvious  definition 
of  man  as  %wov  iroXiriKov,  had  nevertheless  tended  to  centre 
interest  on  the  equally  unmistakable  fact  that  he  was 
%wov  \oyiKov.  It  was  found  impossible  to  reconcile  the 
two  domains,  and  the  wise  man  looked  elsewhere  for  the 
perfect  employment  of  his  highest  faculties  (evSai^ovia} 
than  in  the  narrow  duties  of  domestic  and  social  life.  The 
best  of  men,  the  sincerest  of  philosophers,  when  at  length 

1  The  early  post- Reformation  speculators  were  very  proud  of  having  upset 
the  hierarchical  House  of  Lords,  called  Mediaeval  Feudalism.  Interest  centred 
on  the  fiction  of  pre-social  man,  "  naked  and  unashamed."  Postulating  for  him 
a  liberty  and  an  equality  which  they  were  at  no  pains  to  define,  they  led  directly  to 
the  horrors  of  the  French  Revolution. 


362  F.  W.  BUSSELL  vn 

invested  with  a  power  nominally  absolute,  was  unable  to 
effect  any  improvement  in  mankind,  or  indeed  exert  any 
influence  on  the  fabric  of  Society.  The  reign  of  Marcus 
Aurelius,  disastrous  to  the  Romans,  was,  however,  useful 
to  posterity,  as  warning  against  excessive  hopes  in 
philosophic  or  scientific  moralism  to-day,  or  in  the  results 
of  academic  or  idealistic  legislation.  Whatever  the  cause, 
the  schism  was  complete ;  and  philosophy,  though  it 
claims  to  be  a  practical  rule  of  living,  had  to  leave  the 
real  business  to  the  equity  and  opportunism  of  Roman 
administration.  In  the  Christian  period,  in  spite  of  the 
practical  efficacy  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  sphere  of 
conduct,  it  must  be  confessed  that  in  tJieory  the  significance 
and  value  of  this  world  was  subordinated  to  the  future 
kingdom  of  recompense.  The  rationalism  of  the  School- 
men, exerted  with  startling  audacity  in  the  region  of 
Theosophy  and  the  deepest  mysteries  of  the  Divine 
essence,  never  applied  itself  to  a  thoughtful  survey  of 
human  nature,  its  springs  of  action,  and  capability  of 
perfection,  but  contented  itself  with  an  empty  and  formal 
classification  of  qualities  and  virtues.  Thus,  as  we  have 
seen,  into  this  unknown  region  of  our  own  heart  the  early 
independent  philosophers  of  modern  times  penetrated  with 
the  burden  of  original  sin  on  their  shoulders,  and  saw  in 
man — apart  from  the  divine  grace  (as  some  still  supposed) 
or  the  restraining  influence  of  external  law,  "the  interest 
of  the  many  weak  "-—nothing  but  a  beast  of  prey.  The 
Church,  rich  in  acts  of  mercy,  and  in  striking  examples 
of  the  highest  unselfishness,  had  nevertheless  no  theory  to 
account  for  the  more  generous  emotions  (let  us  hope  a 
fairly  large  portion  of  our  life)  except  on  the  hypothesis 
of  self-interest,  the  attainment  of  a  deferred  annuity  or 
an  eternal  reward.  Practice,  here  as  often  in  advance  of 
thought  (because  love  and  loyalty,  the  true  marks  of  life, 
cannot  be  expressed  in  terms  of  thought) — exposed  to 
the  notice  of  the  speculator  an  entire  class  of  behaviour, 
for  which  he  had  no  name  in  his  lists  but  "  benevolence  "  ; 
and  yet  on  this  the  interest  of  Society  was  more  and  more 
concentrating.  Of  the  immediate  unreflecting  pleasure  of 


vii  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  363 

an  unselfish  action,  without  this  deliberate  rational  calcula- 
tion of  its  effects  in  a  transcendental  realm,  philosophers 
before  Shaftesbury  must  have  had  ample  experience,  but 
did  as  a  matter  of  fact  fail  to  understand  the  significance. 
And  as  since  that  time  the  Problem  of  disinterestedness 
has  stood  in  the  forefront  of  all  ethical  discussion,  it  is 
there  that  the  real  puzzle  lies,  the  true  difficulty  of  a 
rational  presentation  of  ethics. 

When  the  French  Revolution,  born  of  the  brutish 
axiom  of  pure  self-interest,  suddenly  (like  modern  scientific 
sentimentalism)  called  upon  its  votaries  to  sacrifice  them- 
selves to  an  abstraction,  it  could  indeed  readily  count  upon 
a  firm  loyalty  and  devotion  to  principles  if  no  longer  to 
persons.  But  it  could  not  account  for  this  without  paradox, 
nor  explain  it  without  contravening  the  sacred  laws  of  the 
"  Age  of  Reason."  Reason  indeed,  as  Mr.  Kidd  has 
pointed  out,  would  rather  seem  to  summon  us  from  the 
vain  prospect  of  a  terrestrial  paradise  for  some  remote 
race,  to  the  "  cultivation  of  our  own  garden  " — the  single 
remembered  adage  of  Voltaire's  Candide. 

§15.  The  Nineteenth  Century,  which  we  can  no 
longer  call  '  present '  or  '  our  own,'  belonging,  as  it  does,  to 
impartial  history  and  criticism,  is  marked  by  two  some- 
what opposite  tendencies  which  closely  considered  are 
irreconcilable:  (i)  the  practical  benevolence,  first  issuing 
in  a  readjustment  of  imaginary  civic  rights,  as  might  be 
expected  from  the  visionary  idealism  of  the  followers  of 
the  French  Revolution,  and  now  turning  to  the  more 
useful  problem  of  the  substantial  betterment  of  the 
worker's  lot,  not  only  as  a  matter  of  compulsory  education, 
or  sanitation  by  means  of  Act  of  Parliament,  but  as  a 
personal  and  sympathetic  familiarity  with  individuals  in 
the  suffering  class  ;  (2)  the  much-eulogised  advance  in 
human  Science,1  both  in  destroying  the  boundaries  of 
nations  and  their  mutual  exclusiveness,  in  eliminating  the 
marvellous  or  the  unknown  (one  of  the  chief  sources  of 
hope  in  our  life)  not  only  from  this  shrunken  planet  but 

1   "  Science  "  (says  Haeckel,  Riddle  of  the  Universe]  "  has  made  modern  life 
cheerful  and  comfortable." 


364  F.  W.  BUSSELL  vn 

even  from  stellar  space,  and  in  manifesting  the  reign  of  a 
law  and  a  certainty  or  a  fatalism — which  by  no  stretch  of 
fancy  can  be  called  moral  or  retributive — dominant  and 
supreme  in  every  part  of  our  body  or  mind,  in  the  lot  of 
nations,  in  the  destiny  of  the  poor.  The  former  makes 
for  practical  effort,  the  latter  for  quietism  and  abstention. 
The  one  rests  on  the  conviction  of  the  abiding  value  of 
the  individual,  however  difficult  to  explain,  justify  or 
define,  and  the  relativity  of  all  else;  the  other,  whether 
from  the  side  of  religious  or  physical  Monism,1  preaches 
that  complete  or  implicit  mysticism,  which  denying  the 
individual  as  an  illusion,  and  glozing  over  his  sufferings  in 
advancing  the  world -purpose  for  some  inscrutable  end, 
proclaims  the  tyranny  of  the  triumphant  One.2  The 
practical  tendency,  clinging  fast  to  religious  dogma  or  at 
least  to  that  spirit  of  endeavour  which  it  seems  to  beget, 
gives  especial  attention  to  the  weaker  of  mankind,  and 
repairing  the  more  obvious  unfairness  of  lot  by  charity, 
saves  the  infirm,  and  combats  Natural  Selection  at  every 
point.  The  other,  with  eyes  fixed  on  the  unity  of  the 

1  And  the  two  species  are  very  hard  to  distinguish,  as  may  be  seen  in  the 
vacillations  of  Stoicism. 

2  It  is  worth  noticing  that  a  protest  against  this  dominion  of  abstractions  to 
which  Europe,  freed  from  arbitrariness  of  kings  and  priests,  is  bidden  to  bow, — 
reaches  us  from  a  pioneer  of   anarchy,   the  opposite  of  Socialism,   in  rejecting 
Realism  for  the  concrete.      "MaxStirner"  (says  the  eloquent  Vernon  Lee)  "builds 
up  his  system  .   .    .   upon   the   notion   that   the   Geist,   the  intellect   that    forms 
conceptions,  is  a  colossal  cheat,  for  ever  robbing  the  individual  of  its  due,  and 
marring  life  by  imaginary  obstacles.   .   .    .   Against  this  kingdom  of  Delusion  the 
human  individual  —  der  Einzige — has  been  since  the  beginning  of   time  slowly 
and  painfully  fighting  his  way  ;  never  attaining  to  any  kind  of  freedom,  but  merely 
exchanging  one  form  of  slavery  for  another,  slavery  to  the  Religious  delusion  for 
slavery  to  the  Metaphysical  delusion,  slavery  to  Divine  right  for  slavery  to  civil 
liberty,    slavery    to    dogma,    commandment,    heaven    and    hell,    for   slavery    to 
sentiment,  humanity,   progress  —  all  equally  mere  words,   conceits,   figments,  by 
which  the  wretched  individual  has  allowed  himself  to  be  coerced  and  martyrised  ; 
the  wretched  Individual  who  alone  is  a  Reality."     We  may  discount,  to  be  sure, 
the  violence  of  Stirner,  or  the  Thrasymachean  unscrupulousness  of  Nietzsche  ;   in 
the  somewhat  anaemic  Europe  of  to-day,  we  are  not  likely  to  see  an  outburst  of 
those  simpler  and  barbaric  sentiments  of  rapine.      It  is  not  the  anarchy  of  Force 
but  of  Quiescence,    not  Kropotkin   but  Tolstoi,   that   is   the   danger.      That   the 
leisured  and  (presumably)  educated  classes  should  look  down  on  politics  is  perhaps 
natural  but  alarming.      "Duty  in  anything  but  a  negative  form  is  incompatible 
with  Happiness." — Before  an  inalterable  and  undeviating  Evolution  (whence  and 
whether  we  know  not),  whether  of  physical  power  or  of  a  Universe  of  thought 
(Wundt,  Ethics,  pp.  178-180),  any  real  effort  is  superfluous.      If  we  do  not  bow 
to  the  Universal  will,  we  stand  outside  the  course  of  events,  and  delude'ourselves 
with   the   pleasing  luxury  of  defiance  (as   the   Stoic    did,    for   all   his   pussy-cat 
resignation). 


viz  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  365 

Universe,  or  the  outward  prosperity  of  a  Society,  advo- 
cates, in  its  more  candid  moments,  "  Social  Surgery,"  and 
demands  to  control  and  appraise  the  output  of  human 
material  as  much  as  the  amount  and  value  of  any  other 
commodity.  It  does  not  require  the  violent  language  of 
Anarchy  to  assure  us  that  the  weak  individuals  who  yet 
form  the  strong  majority  will  never  submit  to  this.  The 
European  mind  has  been  for  six  hundred  years  striving 
to  overthrow  the  Heteronomy  of  Dogma  and  Deduction, 
and  find  out  some  more  estimable  substitute  than  un- 
questioning passive  obedience — non-resistance  in  politics, 
and  confidence  in  a  father  confessor's  guidance  in  spiritual 
matters.  The  individual  in  the  very  moment  of  victory 
is  certainly  not  going  on  his  travels  to  discover  a  new  and 
more  exacting  master.  Around  the  mediaeval  objects  of 
popular  reverence,  the  Sovereign,  the  Emperor,  the 
Director,  there  hovered  all  the  radiance  of  Divine 
sanction.  Law  was  personified,  and  (as  Epicurus  saw)  a 
person  is  adaptable,  and  may  be  mollified  or  exchanged.1 
The  popular  suffrage  was  won  by  the  appeal  to  democratic 
instinct,  which  deluded  the  commonalty  into  willing 
obedience  even  in  the  case  of  the  French  soldier  of  the 
Revolution,  because  the  highest  offices  in  Church  and 
State,  nay  the  Empire  itself,  were  open  to  all.2  But  even 
the  cleverness  and  the  imagination  of  Comte  cannot  invest 
the  Race,  Humanity,  with  any  of  this  lost  charm.  As  a 
stimulant  to  action  it  is  ineffective ;  as  a  substitute  for 
religious  feeling  it  is  absurd. 

§  16.  It  is  above  all  necessary  to  remember  that  any 
ethical  system  must  be  founded  upon  consideration  for 
the  individual.  All  the  modern  movements  bound  up  in 
the  general  terms,  Trades  Unionism  and  Socialistic  Legis- 
lation, are  (so  far  as  they  are  demanded  by  the  working 
classes)  frankly  egoistic  ;  recognising  co-operation  as 

1  Thus  Despotism  has  always  found  a  corrective  in  assassination,  and  is  more 
sensitive  than  any  other  form  of  government  to  public  opinion,  if  it  once  finds 
expression. 

*  So  are  political  offices  to-day,  in  the  Democratic  regimen  which  defeats  and 
denies  itself.  The  only  cure  for  the  complementary  evils  of  professional  statesmen 
and  pessimistic  abstention  is  a  hard-working  and  gratuitous  aristocracy. 


366  F.  W.  BUSSELL  vn 

essential,  but  subordinate  to  the  attainment  of  individual 
desires,  and  as  a  means  not  as  an  end.  Calvinism  which 
enslaved  the  will  to  a  divine  and  inscrutable  edict,  out  of 
the  plane  of  human  reason  and  justice,  was  repelled  with 
no  less  indignation  by  the  new  movement  than  the  doctrine 
of  passive  obedience  to  a  luxurious  king's  caprice.  How- 
ever decorated  by  appeals  to  abstract  Right  and  Justice, 
the  writings  of  the  Labour  leaders  aim  clearly  at  one 
thing — the  equal  division  of  external  goods,  to  which,  by 
the  way,  the  Greek  schools  subsequent  to  Aristotle  united 
to  deny  the  title  good  altogether.  Disappointed  alike 
with  the  failure  of  Machinery  and  the  Franchise  to  increase 
the  general  distribution  of  comforts,  and  to  put  an  end  to 
the  subservience  of  the  million  to  the  luxury  of  a  few, 
they  entertain  a  justifiable  ambition  ;  but  it  is  difficult  to 
impart  ethical  notions  into  this  challenge,  except  those  of 
a  candid  and  thorough-going  Eudaemonism.1  Universal 
Eudsemonism  indeed,  as  Wundt  would  call  it,  but  only  so 
because  in  Utilitarianism  alone  is  there  secure  fruition  of 
personal  happiness.  The  prospect  of  the  extinction  of 
competition  in  European  Society  cannot  be  seriously 
regarded.  The  voluntary  abandonment  of  self-determina- 
tion may  take  place  under  stress  of  national  circumstances 
(the  case  of  France  under  Napoleon  III.  will  recur) — or 
of  individual  privation.  Something  of  the  sort  we  see  in 
those  combinations  of  Socialism  which  often  demand 
more  patient  self-sacrifice  of  the  unit  than  they  can  repay 
by  any  tangible  benefit.  But  in  Europe,  at  least  in  the 
Germanic  and  progressive  part,  the  whole  temper  of  the 
people  is  against  State  control  in  private  affairs,  and  the 
same  irksomeness  which  will  eventually  expel  Militarism, 
would  make  short  work  of  its  would-be  successor. 
Founded  amid  the  wild  forests  which  the  Germania  of 
Tacitus  describes  to  us,  and  gradually  spreading  over  the 
homes  of  now  decadent  Classical  civilisation,  the  Germanic 
individualism  is  loyal  to  Sovereign  and  State,  because  of 

1  If  the  undeviating  Law  of  Natural  Selection,  or  the  equally  compelling 
edicts  of  Social  Legislation,  could  bring  the  much-needed  reforms,  the  individual 
need  not  exert  himself,  as  success  would  be  certain,  and  his  efforts  superfluous. 


vn  THE  FUTURE  OF  ETHICS  367 

the  principle  of  noblesse  oblige:  just  because  it  is  not  a 
compulsory  but  a  willing  homage.  If  the  practice  of  war 
is  demanding  the  greater  freedom  and  spontaneity  of  the 
single  soldier,  in  the  political  and  ethical  world  there 
seems  to  be  a  similar  recognition  of  the  need  of  an  initial 
(not  a  subsequent)  independence  of  system  and  formula. 
The  uniting  bond  between  the  (often)  lawless  caprice  or 
egoism  of  the  one,  and  the  general  order  and  welfare  of 
the  whole,  must  be  a  respect  and  an  affection  for  persons, 
and  not  a  cold  and  distant  homage  to  abstract  principles.1 
§17.  To  return,  in  conclusion,  to  our  original  contrast 
of  Oriental  and  Occidental  modes  of  thought.  Immersed 
in  unconscious  resignation  to  a  spiritual,  physical,  or 
political  unity,  the  Eastern  rouses  himself  to  reflection 
only  to  sink  back  into  apathy,  from  a  sense  of  impotence. 
The  vague  Pessimism  which  more  or  less  strongly 
tinged  their  systems  in  very  remote  times,  spread  into 
Hellenic  culture,  and  is  revived  to-day  in  reaction  against 
hasty  Optimism, — is  the  result  of  their  power  to  criticise 
but  not  to  alter.  The  illusion  of  freedom  is  all  that 
separates  us  from  the  unreflecting  happiness  of  animal  life  ; 
and  the  Sage  cannot  be  consoled  by  the  thought  that  his 
soul  is  part  of  the  universal  Divine  essence.  All  mysticism, 
East  or  West,  tends  to  diminish  on  close  survey  the  part 
which  is  truly  Divine  ;  passions,  anger,  practical  impulses, 
virtues,  discursive  understanding,  and  at  last  reason  itself 
and  thought  (tyi\r)  vorjais')  are  successively  sacrificed  as 
unworthy  of  this  lofty  origin  ;  and  the  single  link  is  the 
mysterious  point  "  Synderesis,"  just  the  background  of 

1  It  must  be  confessed  that  while  philosophy  in  England  has  spoken  forcibly 
in  favour  of  this  ultimate  axiom,  spontaneity,  and  has  regarded  with  disapproval 
the  extension  of  State  control,  German  thinkers  have,  on  the  other  hand,  been 
too  much  enamoured  of  the  whole  to  care  for  the  parts.  But  the  unification  of 
Germany  and  the  influence  of  Hegel,  "  last  of  the  Schoolmen,"  will  account  just 
now  for  the  prevalence  of  this  Realism,  which  certainly  will  not  last,  in  prejudice 
to  the  character  and  temperament  of  the  nation. 

Germany  (once  the  home  of  individuality,  but  owing  to  its  long  divorce  from 
practical  life,  for  a  long  period  a  nation  of  dreamers)  speaks  with  mystical  pride 
of  such  subordination  of  unit  to  whole,  of  detached  fragment  to  whole  mass,  but 
it  is  akin  to  the  whole  temper  and  common  sense  of  English  philosophy,  which 
here  at  least,  in  the  department  of  positive  Ethics,  is  entitled  to  credit  both  of 
originality  and  (compared  to  continental  velleities)  of  a  certain  measure  cf 
achievement. 


368  F.  W.  BUSSELL  vn 

our  thought,  the  unfathomable  depth  of  our  consciousness, 
which,  even  if  it  be  the  apex  and  throne  of  our  being,  can 
be  reached  only  by  ceasing  to  think  as  well  as  ceasing  to 
act.  Spinozism  (and  indeed  all  Monism)  is  the  supreme 
achievement  and  the  necessary  goal  of  pure  Reason,  intent 
on  the  mysteries  of  life  and  compelled,  by  virtue  of  its 
own  nature,  to  refuse  all  repose  until  it  can  rest  or  dissolve 
in  a  final  and  absolute  vacuity.  Mysticism,  in  the  same 
way,  whether  pessimistic  or  devotional  or  merely  physical, 
is  the  unfailing  last  term  of  such  a  survey,  though  it  claims 
to  be  purely  intellectual.  From  the  Western  point  of 
view  (which,  I  repeat,  is  only  a  prepossession  of  our  mind, 
and  cannot  be  explained  or  defended  with  complete 
success),  "  le  Mysticisme  c'est  1'ennemi."  Ethics,  re- 
garded in  the  widest  sense  as  the  Science  of  the  conduct 
of  life  in  Society,  cannot  look  with  equanimity  at  the 
removal  of  all  possible  motive  or  stimulant  to  action. 
As  it  confronted  with  defiance  the  arbitrary  decrees  of 
Calvinism  or  the  selfishness  of  a  dissolute  Court,  so  it 
finds  its  duty  to-day  in  combating,  in  the  interests  of 
Practice,  the  tendencies  of  modern  scientific,  political, 
humanitarian,  religious  Unification.  The  result  is  the 
same  in  all  such  systems,  whether  the  unity,  of  which  we 
are  transient  and  unimportant  manifestations,  be  a  natural 
Substance  or  a  physical  Law,  or  a  Communistic  State,  or 
the  Life  of  the  Race,  or  in  Idealism,  a  single  Spirit  behind 
the  seeming  variety  of  individual  experience  and  thought. 
In  the  two  extreme  views  we  are  either  the  result  of  the 
Law  of  substance,  or  the  "  organ  of  a  reason  "  which  is 
not  our  own.  In  neither  case  are  we  what  we  thought 
we  were.  But  upon  the  prejudices  and  postulates  of  our 
genuinely  different  soul-life  has  been  built  the  structure 
of  European  ethics  and  society,  and  we  shall  be  obliged 
in  the  end  to  revert  to  that  region  of  Faith,  wherein  lies 
the  spring  of  benevolent  activities,  and  desert  the  supposed 
discoveries  of  Pure  Reason  ;  for  therein  lies  stagnation 
and  lethargy  not  merely  of  action  but  in  the  end  of 
thought  itself. 


VIII 

PERSONALITY:    HUMAN   AND   DIVINE 
By  H.  RASHDALL 

1.  The  Idealist  position  assumed. 

2.  What  is  meant  by  the  term  '  Personality '  besides  consciousness  ? 

3.  (a)  A  thinking,  not  merely  a  feeling,  consciousness  ;  (/')  a  certain  per- 

manence. 

4.  (<:}  The  person  distinguishes  himself  from  the  objects  of   his  thought, 

(d)  and  from  other  selves  :  Individuality. 

5.  (?)  The  person  has  a  will  or  is  active. 

6.  It  is  difficult  to  deny  any  of  these  characteristics  in  their  most  rudi- 

mentary form  to  the  lowest  or  at  least  to  the  higher  animal  intelligences 
(cf.  the  case  of  children).  Personality  is  a  matter  of  degree. 

7.  Morality  might  establish  a  sharper  distinction,   but  it  is  impossible  to 

pronounce  absolutely  where  this  begins. 

8.  Vet  these  requirements  are  not  fully  satisfied  even  by  man  :  human  per- 

sonality is  imperfect.  If  satisfied  at  all,  they  must  be  satisfied  only  by 
God. 

9.  Belief  in  God  assumed  on  idealistic  grounds.      Not  merely  a  Universal 

Thinker  but  a  Will. 

10.  Objections  to  the  idea  of  Personality  in  God.      (a)  '  No  subject  without 

an  object '  ;  but  this  does  not  necessarily  imply  that  the  objects  from 
which  the  subject  distinguishes  himself  are  other  than  the  changing 
states  of  himself,  willed  by  himself. 

11.  (b)  A    'higher  unity'  is   demanded;    but   this  is  unintelligible   if  it   is 

meant  that  the  distinction  between  subject  and  object  is  to  be  effaced. 

12.  (c)  Some  deny  that  God  is  Will  as  well  as  Thought ;  but  the  idea  of  Causality 

includes  final  causality,  and  demands  'activity'  in  the  universal  Mind. 

13.  (d)  The  ascription  of  Personality  to  God  does  not  (as  may  be  objected) 

involve  Pluralism  or  independent,  unoriginated  souls. 

14.  (e)  It  is  contended  that  God  must  be  thought  of  as  including  finite  spirits. 

This  idea  arises  from  the  assumption  that  the  principium  individuationis 
of  a  being  that  exists  for  himself  is  the  same  as  that  of  a  thing  which 
exists  only  for  other.  Our  inability  to  distinguish  between  two  minds 
whose  content  is  identical  does  not  prove  that  they  are  one  and  not  two. 

15.  Reality  of  the  Self  vindicated.     God  may  know  other  selves  without  being 

such  selves. 

16.  How  the  knowledge  of  other  selves,  as  they  are  for  themselves,  is  possible. 

Confusion  between  the  content  of  thought  which  is  a  universal,  and  there 


370  H.   RASHDALL 


vm 


fore  '  common  '  to  many  minds,  and  the  actual  thinking  consciousness 

which  thinks. 

17.   Is  God  finite  or  infinite  ? 
1  8.   The  question  of  Time. 
19.   God  is  not  the  Absolute.     The  Absolute  is  a  society  which  includes  God 

and  all  other  spirits. 

§i.I  PROPOSE  in  the  present  paper  to  inquire  what  is  the 
real  meaning  of  the  term  Personality,  and  then  to  ask  in 
what  sense  that  term  may  be  applied  firstly  to  individual 
human  beings  and  then  to  God. 

In  discussing  a  subject  which  really  forms  the  apex  as 
it  were  of  the  whole  metaphysical  pyramid,  it  is  necessary 
to  assume  a  good  deal.  One  cannot  begin  at  the  bottom 
of  the  pyramid,  but  must  assume  that  our  foundations 
are  already  laid,  and  even  that  we  are  much  nearer  the 
top  than  the  bottom  of  our  theoretical  structure.  I  shall 
assume  in  short  the  position  of  an  Idealist.1  I  shall 
assume  that  we  have  followed  and  accepted  the  line  of 
argument  which  goes  to  prove  that  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  matter  apart  from  mind,  that  what  we  commonly  call 
things  are  not  self-subsistent  realities,  but  are  only  real 
when  taken  in  their  connection  with  mind  —  that  they 
exist  for  mind,  not  for  themselves. 

§  2.  If  this  position  be  accepted,  it  must  carry  with  it, 
it  would  prima  facie  appear,  the  existence  of  the  souls, 
spirits,  or  selves,  which  know  or  experience  the  things. 
I  must  not  stay  to  meet  the  argument  by  which  writers 
like  Mr.  Bradley  attack  the  ascription  of  absolute  reality 
to  individual  souls.  Anything  that  I  can  say  on  that 
subject  may  be  most  fitly  reserved  for  a  later  stage  of  the 
argument.  I  put  aside  for  the  present  the  question 
whether  personality  carries  with  it  the  idea  of  reality. 
Even  by  those  who  decline  to  consider  persons  as 
absolutely  real,  it  is  not  denied  that  persons  do  in  a  sense 
exist.  What  is  meant,  then,  by  saying  that  persons  exist  ? 
What  is  the  differentia  of  a  person  ?  First  and  most 
obviously  personality  implies  consciousness.  The  main 
question  indeed  that  may  be  raised  about  Personality  is 

1  I  have  attempted  a  very  brief  and  popular  outline  of  the  idealistic  c-reod,  as 
I  understand  it,  in  its  theological  bearing.1-  in  a  recently  published  volume  of 
essavs  entitled  ('ontentio  \'ei'itiili<,  bv  Six  Oxford  Tutors. 


via    PERSONALITY:   HUMAN   AND   DIVINE   371 

"  What  more  besides  consciousness  is  implied  in  it  ? " 
Worms  are  commonly  supposed  to  be  conscious,  but  they 
are  not  ordinarily  called  persons.  How  does  the  mind 
of  a  man  differ  from  that  of  a  worm  ? 

§  3.  (a)  I  suppose  it  will  be  universally  admitted  that 
\a  person  is  a  thinking  consciousness,  not  a  merely  feeling 
consciousness.  Personality  implies  thought,  not  mere 
/sensibility. 

(£)  And  this  carries  with  it  the  further  implication  of  a 
certain  permanence.  If  such  a  thing  as  a  purely  feeling 
consciousness  exists,  its  life  must  be  supposed  to  consist  in 
a  succession  of  experiences,  each  of  which  only  occupies 
consciousness  when  it  is  present,  and  is  quite  unconnected, 
for  that  being,  with  the  consciousness  of  any  other  moment. 
The  feeling  of  one  moment  might  indeed  produce  effects 
which  will  alter  or  modify  the  feeling  of  another  moment, 
but  the  consciousness  of  that  second  moment  is  not 
aware  of  this  connection  with  preceding  moments.  A 
personal  consciousness  puts  together  and  presents  to  itself 
and  brings  into  relation  with  one  another  experiences  of 
diverse  moments.  A  certain  degree  of  permanence  is  the 
second  idea  that  we  associate  with  personality. 

§  4.  (c)  And  this  permanence  of  the  consciousness 
amid  changing  experiences  further  carries  with  it  another 
characteristic.  The  person  distinguishes  himself  from  the 
objects  of  his  thought,  although  the  ultimate  esse  of  these 
objects  must,  if  we  are  really  faithful  to  idealism,  be 
experiences  actual  or  possible  of  that  same  consciousness 
or  of  some  other  consciousness. 

(d)  Among  these  objects  of  thought  which  a  person 
knows  are,  however,  not  merely  things  which  exist  for 
consciousness  only,  that  is,  exist  for  other  (as  the  phrase 
is)  but  also  other  selves  which  are  not  known  merely  as 
objects  for  this  person's  thought,  but  as  beings  which 
exist  for  themselves.  Many  difficult  and  interesting 
questions  may  be  raised  about  our  knowledge  of  other 
minds,  but  these  cannot  be  dealt  with  now.  It  is  enough 
to  say  that  the  consciousness  which  is  personal  distinguishes 
itself  from  other  consciousnesses  and  particularly  from 


372  H.   RASHDALL  vm 

other  persons.      Individuality  is  an  essential  element  in  our 
idea  of  personality. 

§  5.  (i)  So  far  there  will  be  perhaps  little  dispute.      I 
am  possibly  asserting  something  less  universally  admitted 
when    I   say  that  the  most  essential  of  all  attributes  of 
personality  has  yet  to  be  mentioned.     The  person  is  not 
merely  a  feeling  but  a  willing  or  originating  consciousness. 
The  self  is  conscious  of  being  an  ap^  } — whether  in  the 
sense  of  the  Libertarian  or  in  the  sense  of  the  Determinist 
who  believes  in  "  self-determination,"  need  not  be  discussed 
here.      Of  course,  willing  implies  and  is  essentially  con- 
nected with  both  thought  and  feeling,  but   it  is  not  the 
same  thing.      There  cannot  be  will  without  thought    or 
feeling  ;  equally  little  can   we  form  any  distinct  idea -.of 
what    thought  would    be  without  will.      For  us  at   least\ 
there  is  no  thought  without  attention  :  and  attention   is 
an   act  of  the  will.      As  Mr.  Bosanquet  puts  it,  "  When- 
ever we   are   awake  we    are    thinking,   whenever  we   are; 
awake  we  are  willing."     And  the  willing  and  the  thinking  v 
are  most  intimately  connected.      Thought  is  an   act,  and/  . 
we  do  not  perform  that  act  any  more  than  any  other  act 
without  a  motive,  and  that  implies  feeling. 

Our  idea  of  a  person  is  then  the  idea  of  a  consciousness 
which  thinks,  which  has  a  certain  permanence,  which 
distinguishes  itself  from  its  own  successive  experiences 
and  from  all  other  consciousness  —  lastly,  and  most , 
important  of  all,  which  acts.  A  person  is  a  conscious/ 
permanent,  self-distinguishing,  individual,  active  being^x 

§  6.  What  consciousnesses  then  possess  personality  ? 
It  is  generally  admitted  that  human  beings  possess  person- 
ality, if  any.  But  what  minds  do  not  possess  personality  ? 
Most  people  would  incontinently  deny  it  to  a  worm, 
though  they  are  fairly  satisfied  that  worms  have  some 
kind  of  consciousness.  And  yet  I  confess  I  cannot  attach 
much  meaning  to  the  idea  of  a  consciousness  which  feels 
but  does  not  know  at  all— even  for  a  second — what  it 

1  For  the  defence  of  this  proposition  from  the  psychological  point  of  view 
I  may  content  myself  with  referring  to  Dr.  Stout's  "Analytical  Psychology," 
passim. 


vni    PERSONALITY:  HUMAN   AND  DIVINE   373 

feels  ;  if  it  does  know,  however  dimly,  if  its  feeling  has 
any  content,  here,  it  would  seem,  there  must  be  rudimentary 
thought.  Worms  admittedly  wriggle  :  if  they  have  the 
slightest  awareness  of  this  wriggling,  there  would  seem 
to  be  a  rudimentary  idea  of  space,  though  no  doubt  they 
are  quite  incapable  of  grasping  the  truth  that  space 
excludes  enclosure  by  two  straight  lines.  Again,  feeling 
must  occupy  a  certain  time  or  it  would  not  be  feeling 
at  all.  An  atomic  "  now  "  could  not  even  be  felt  Mere 
feeling  by  itself,  therefore,  would  seem  to  imply  a  certain 
continuity  of  consciousness,  a  sense  of  transition  from  one 
feeling  to  another,  a  rudimentary  permanence.1 

And  still  more  confidently  may  we  assert  that  not 
even  from  the  lowest  forms  of  animal  consciousness  can 
we  exclude  the  idea  of  impulse,  activity,  conation,  as  the 
psychologists  call  it.  In  his  brilliant  Gifford  Lectures  we 
even  find  Professor  Ward  sanctioning  to  some  extent  the 
attempt  to  make  activity  a  more  fundamental  and  earlier- 
developed  characteristic  of  animal  life  than  thought,  and 
(to  me  more  questionably)  to  attribute  teleological  activity, 
and  with  it  apparently  consciousness,  to  plant-life.  What- 
ever may  be  thought  of  these  speculations,  animals  at  all 
events  have  impulses,  and  it  is  impossible  to  draw  any 
sharp  line  between  the  type  of  impulse  which  we  call 
instinct,  in  which  we  assume  that  there  is  no  consciousness 
of  the  end  aimed  at,  and  the  reflective  resolution  of  the 
full-grown  man  who  presents  to  himself  a  desired  object 
and  deliberately  adopts  it  as  his  end.  Without  some 
consciousness — I  will  not  say  of  an  end  but  at  least  of 
the  act  towards  which  there  is  an  impulse — -even  instinct 
would  not  be  instinct,  and  between  the  blindest  of  instincts 
and  the  most  deliberate  of  volitions  there  are  probably 
impulses  of  every  degree  of  reflectiveness. 

But  whatever  difficulties  may  be  felt  with  regard  to  the 
worm  or  the  jelly-fish,  when  we  come  to  the  higher  animals 

1  "  Every  feeling  of  pleasure  or  of  dislike,  every  kind  of  self-enjoyment,  does  in 
our  view  contain  the  primary  basis  of  personality,  that  immediate  self-existence 
which  all  later  developments  of  self-consciousness  may  indeed  make  plainer  to 
thought  by  contrasts  and  comparisons,  thus  also  intensifying  its  value,  but  which 
is  not  in  the  first  place  produced  by  them." -— Lotze,  Microcosmus,  Bk.  ix. 
chap.  iv. ,  E.T.  ii.  679. 


374  H.   RASHDALL  vm 

at  all  events,  it  is  clear  to  me  that  it  is  wholly  arbitrary  to 
deny  to  the  higher  animals  in  some  rudimentary  form 
each  and  every  one  of  the  characteristics  which  we  have 
held  to  constitute  Personality.  And  yet  where  shall  we 
say  that  Personality  begins  ?  It  is  impossible — in  all 
probability  with  the  amplest  knowledge  it  would  still  be 
impossible — to  say  where  personality  begins  in  the  evolu- 
tion of  animal  life,  just  as  it  is  impossible  to  say  where  it 
begins  in  the  life- history  of  the  individual  man.  The 
newly  born  infant  is  no  more  of  a  person  than  a  worm, 
except  8vvd/j,ei.  Yet  it  is  impossible  at  any  period  in  the 
life  of  the  child  to  say  to  it  "  To-day  thou  art  a  person  ; 
yesterday  thou  wast  not."  Personality  in  short  is  a 
matter  of  degree. 

§  7.  We  may  no  doubt  find  a  more  definite  test  of 
personality,  if  we  add  to  our  other  differentia  one  which 
undoubtedly  has  a  good  right  to  be  included  in  it,  the 
capacity  for  Morality.  Here  we  should  have  little  diffi- 
culty in  saying  definitely  that  there  are  some  types  of 
consciousness  which  are  below  personality  altogether. 
We  may,  indeed,  see  germs  of  Morality  in  the  sociality 
of  animals  ;  but  we  do  not  commonly  consider  Morality 
to  begin  till  we  reach  the  stage  in  which  there  is  definite 
choice  between  conflicting  impulses.  In  the  lower  animals 
it  is  commonly  assumed  that  every  impulse  necessarily 
determines  action  while  it  is  there,  or  until  its  place  is 
taken  by  another,  which  then  becomes  similarly  irresistible. 
But  still  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  that  in  the  highest 
stages  of  animal  life  this  dispossession  of  one  impulse  by 
another  is  effected  entirely  without  comparison  between 
the  ideal  satisfaction  of  the  two  impulses  ;  and  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  say  at  what  point  in  the  evolution  either  of  the 
individual  or  of  the  race  the  choice  between  the  conflicting 
impulses — between,  for  instance,  a  race-preserving  action 
and  a  self-preserving  one — becomes  sufficiently  deliberate 
to  constitute  Morality.  If  we  place  the  beginning  of 
Morality  high,  we  must  admit  that  there  is  something 
very  like  Morality  below  that  limit.  If  we  place  it  low, 
we  shall  have  to  admit  that  the  germinal  Morality  of  the 


via    PERSONALITY:   HUMAN   AND  DIVINE   375 

savage  is  very  unlike  the  developed  Morality  of  the 
civilised  adult.  And  even  in  civilised  adults  the  capacity 
for  Morality  varies  so  enormously  that  it  is  quite  an 
arguable  position  to  maintain  that  in  some  men  it  is  non- 
existent or  wholly  undeveloped. 

§  8.  There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  what  we  have 
laid  down  as  the  essential  characteristics  of  personality 
are  fully  satisfied  by  any  form  of  consciousness  below  the 
human,  though  to  no  consciousness  can  one  deny  some 
approximation  to  most  of  them.  But  are  they  fully 
satisfied  even  by  the  human  Self?  Certainly  Socrates 
was  more  of  a  person  than  a  savage.  But  does  even 
Socrates  fully  satisfy  the  demands  of  personality  ?  Apply 
the  test  which  discriminates  the  thinking  consciousness 
from  the  merely  sensitive  consciousness.  It  is  of  the 
essence  of  the  thinking  consciousness  that  it  should  bind 
together  the  successive  moments  of  experience,  that  it 
should  look  before  and  after,  that  it  should  know  the  past 
and  the  future  as  well  as  the  present.  Did  Socrates  know 
his  own  past — his  own  even,  to  say  nothing  of  others' 
past — as  well  as  he  knew  his  present?  There  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that  Socrates  had  forgotten  much  of  his 
early  experience — some  things  probably  (to  avoid  cavil) 
which  he  might  have  remembered  with  advantage.  Large 
masses  of  his  youthful  experience  had  simply  dropped 
out  ;  they  were  as  little  recognised  by  him  as  belonging 
to  the  same  self  of  which  he  was  now  conscious  as  though 
they  had  been  the  experiences  of  some  other  person.  This 
falls  short  of  the  perfect  ideal  of  personality.  Take  the 
test  of  moral  choice.  Socrates  had  a  rational  will,  pur- 
suing ends  in  which  his  Reason  discerned  value.  But  it 
would  be  too  much  to  say  that  a  passion  for  "  scoring  off" 
Sophists  never  mastered  his  judgment,  and  betrayed  him 
into  remarks  which  upon  reflection  even  he  himself  would 
have  recognised  as  not  conducive  to  the  discovery  of  truth 
or  to  the  attainment  of  his  own  true  good.  Thus  the  most 
developed  human  consciousness  seems  to  fall  short  of  the 
ideal  which  every  human  consciousness  suggests  to  us. 
An  imperfect  personality  is  the  most  that  we  can  attribute 


H.  RASHDALL  \in 

even  to  the  most  richly  endowed  of  human  souls.  If  a 
person  T&>  aKpiftea-Tdrq)  \6j(f>  is  to  exist,  such  personality 
must  be  found  not  in  man  but  in  some  superior  being — 
as  far  as  our  knowledge  goes,  only,  if  at  all,  in  God. 

§  9.  But  does  any  such  consciousness  as  is  commonly 
understood  to  be  implied  by  the  term  God  really  exist  ? 
Here  once  more  I  must  assume  an  argument  which  I 
have  not  leisure  to  develop.  I  must  assume  that  my 
readers  are  familiar  with  the  argument  by  which  Idealists 
lead  up  to  this  idea  of  a  Universal  Self- consciousness. 
The  world,  as  Idealism  holds  itself  to  have  proved,  must 
exist  in  a  mind.  Yet  if  Science  is  to  be  justified,  it  is 
clear  that  its  only  esse  cannot  be  in  such  minds  as  our  own. 
My  own  Reason,  making  inferences  from  my  own  ex- 
perience, assures  me  that  the  world  was  when  I  was  not — 
when  no  human  or  sub-human  ancestor  of  mine  was  there 
to  contemplate  the  molten  planet  or  the  contracting  nebula. 
I  cannot  understand  my  present  experience  without  making 
that  assumption.  There  must  then  have  been  a  conscious- 
ness for  which  the  world  always  existed.  The  very  fact 
that  I  know  there  are  things  which  I  do  not  know,  and 
that  what  I  know  I  know  but  imperfectly,  proves  the 
existence  of  a  Universal  Knower  if  to  be  (when  applied 
to  a  thing)  =  to  be  experienced.  Idealism  then  proves 
the  existence  of  a  Universal  Thinker.  And  analogy 
would  lead  us  to  believe  that  we  must  attribute  to  the 
Universal  Thinker  in  perfection  all  those  characteristics 
which  are  implied  by  Personality,  and  which  yet  no 
human  person  ever  completely  satisfied.  Just  the  same 
line  of  thought  which  infers  that  God  knows  perfectly  the 
world  which  we  know  imperfectly  points  to  the  belief  that 
He  possesses  perfectly  the  personality  which  we  possess 
imperfectly — that  He  is  a  being  who  thinks,  who  persists 
throughout  his  successive  experiences,  who  knows  those 
past  experiences  as  well  as  the  present,  who  distinguishes 
Himself  from  the  objects  of  his  thought,  who  in  particular 
distinguishes  Himself  from  all  other  consciousnesses,  and, 
finally,  who  wills,  and  wills  in  accordance  with  the  con- 
ception of  an  ideal  end  or  good.  I  need  hardly  discuss 


viii    PERSONALITY:  HUMAN   AND  DIVINE   377 

elaborately  what  God  wills  :  by  any  one  who  admits  the 
idea  of  volition  into  his  own  conception  of  God  at  all  it 
will  hardly  be  questioned  that,  if  God  wills,  He  must  will 
all,  or  at  least  (let  us  say  for  the  present)  everything  that 
is  not  willed  by  some  lesser  will.  We  are  conscious  of 
objects  which  we  know  and  will,  and  of  others  which  we 
know  but  do  not  will.  God  must  will  the  object  of  his 
own  thought — i.e.  the  world. 

§  10.  Why  is  the  conception  of  Personality  in  God  such 
a  stumbling-block  ?  Fully  to  state  and  meet  these  objec- 
tions would  be  a  Philosophy.  I  can  only  aim  at  suggest- 
ing the  bare  headings  (as  it  were)  of  some  chapters  which 
such  a  Philosophy  would  contain. 

(a)  The  first  head  of  objection  runs  thus.  To  think 
of  God  simply  as  a  spirit  or  soul  or  self,  distinguishable 
from  the  world,  is  to  forget  that  the  human  self  knows 
itself  only  at  the  same  time  and  by  the  same  act  wherein 
it  knows  the  not-self.  A  self  which  knows  nothing  is  a 
mere  abstraction.  God  therefore  must  not  be  thought  of 
as  apart  from  the  world.  The  world  is  as  necessary  to 
God  as  God  is  to  the  world.  I  should  quite  admit  that 
the  divine,  like  the  human,  Thinker  must  think  objects  : 
but  then  I  should  contend  that  these  objects  must  not  be 
understood  as  anything  existing  independently  of  the 
knowing  Ego.  The  self  must  distinguish  itself  from 
something  ;  but  that  something  need  only  be  the  changing 
states  of  itself.1  Further,  I  should  insist  that  all  these 
experiences  or  objects  of  the  divine  thought  must  be 
conceived  of  as  willed,  no  less  than  thought,  and  therefore 
are  not  to  be  distinguished  from  God's  own  being  in  the 
way  in  which  the  involuntary  and  often  painful  experiences 
of  ourselves  have  to  be  distinguished  from  the  self  which 
knows  them.  To  think  of  the  world  (with  some  Idealists) 
as  though  it  were  an  eternal  complement  to  God — a.  sort 
of  Siamese  twin  to  which  He  is  eternally  and  inseparably 
annexed  but  which  is  something  other  than  the  content  of 

1  I  an;  dealing  here  only  with  the  world  of  things.  Objections  might  no 
doubt  be  raised  to  the  idea  of  a  Universe  in  which  one  Self  and  his  thoughts 
were  the  sole  Reality. 


378  H.  RASHDALL  vm 

his  Will — is  to  forget  our  Idealism,  and  still  more  to  forget 
our  "  Monism."  The  Dualism  is  no  less  Dualism  because 
we  are  told  that  the  subject  is  as  necessary  to  the  object 
as  the  object  to  the  subject,  if  the  object  be  thought  of 
as  something  which  exists  quite  independently  of  being 
willed  by  the  Mind  which  is  compelled  to  know  it  but 
which  may  yet  (for  anything  that  such  a  Philosophy  has 
to  say  to  the  contrary)  be  constrained  to  pronounce  it 
very  bad.  Such  a  view  is  none  the  less  Dualism  because 
the  object  is  understood  to  be  an  "  object  of  thought " 
and  not  the  "  matter "  of  the  materialist.  To  say  that 
the  subject  is  necessary  to  the  object  does  not  get  rid 
of  the  two  principles :  Ahriman  was,  I  suppose,  in  the 
Zoroastrian  Philosophy  regarded  as  necessary  to  Ormuzd. 
Such  a  mode  of  thought  really  ends  (as  many  of  Green's 
disciples  have  shown)  in  a  naturalism  which  for  all  practical 
purposes  is  indistinguishable  from  materialism.  When 
God  ceases  to  be  thought  of  as  active  power,  He  soon 
comes  to  be  regarded  as  merely  an  abstraction  :  if  He  is 
still  spoken  of  as  "  thought,"  that  is  merely  an  abstract 
way  of  representing  all  the  true  thought  of  all  the  indi- 
vidual thinkers  in  the  Universe  as  if  they  were  all  held 
together  in  a  system  by  an  actual  consciousness.  How- 
ever abhorrent  this  tendency  would  have  been  to  the 
essentially  religious  mind  of  such  a  man  as  Green,  that  is 
the  natural  development  of  a  Philosophy  which  really 
banishes  the  idea  of  activity  not  merely  from  its  idea  of 
God  but  in  truth  from  its  conception  of  the  Universe 
as  a  whole. 

§11.  (/>)  But  some  will  insist,  not  merely  that  God 
must  have  a  world  to  know,  but  that  neither  God  nor  the 
world,  nor  the  two  taken  together,  can  be  regarded  as  the 
Absolute  being.  God  +  His  thoughts,  Subject  +  object 
does  not  satisfy  our  demand  for  Unity.  The  Absolute 
must  be  both  subject  and  object.  It  must  be.  that  which 
it  knows.  It  must  "  transcend  "  the  distinction  between 
subject  and  object.  It  must  be  both  at  once  or  a  third 
thing  that  is  neither.  To  this  I  answer  :  ''  If  all  that  is 
meant  is  that  what  God  knows  (putting  aside  for  the 


vin    PERSONALITY:   HUMAN   AND   DIVINE   379 

present  other  spirits  and  their  experiences)  must  be  in  a 
sense  part  of  Himself,  within  His  own  being,  I  admit  that 
that  is  so  (if  what  He  thinks  is  also  what  He  wills)  but 
I  should  contend  that  such  an  admission  does  not  get 
rid  of  the  distinction  between  subject  and  object,  nor  is 
it  inconsistent  with  personality.  If  what  is  meant  is  that 
there  is  a  kind  of  third  being  unlike  the  only  two  kinds 
of  being  which  we  have  any  reason  to  believe  in — neither 
thinker  nor  thought,  neither  subject  nor  object,  neither 
that  which  exists  for  self  nor  that  which  exists  for  other, 
I  answer  that  the  supposition  is  wholly  gratuitous  :  and 
that  it  is,  indeed,  one  to  which  no  real  meaning  can  be 
attached.  It  is  open  to  all  the  objections  which  have 
been  so  copiously  hurled  at  the  Kantian  '  Noumena,'  at 
the  Spencerian  '  Unknowable,'  at  the  crude  '  matter '  of 
the  '  nai've  Realist.'  We  don't  really  solve  difficulties  by 
chucking  contradictions l  into  the  Absolute  and  saying 
'  Be  ye  reconciled  there,  for  we  are  quite  sure  ye  cannot 
be  reconciled  here.'  Mr.  Bradley's  Philosophy  of  the 
Absolute,  however  brilliant  his  genius,  however  invaluable 
the  stimulus  which  he  has  given  to  metaphysical  thought 
in  the  attempt  to  construct  it,  is  (I  venture  to  suggest)  an 
attempt  to  fuse  two  wholly  contradictory  and  irreconcil- 
able lines  of  thought — the  idealistic  and  the  Spinozistic. 
The  idea  that  thought  (or  thinker)  can  be  an  attribute  or 
adjective  of  something  which  is  neither  thought  nor 
thinker,  is  wholly  inadmissible  to  one  who  sees,  as  clearly 
as  does  Mr.  Bradley,  that  nothing  exists  but  experience. 

§12.  (c)  It  is  objected  that  we  have  no  right  to  attribute 
the  idea  of  will  to  God.  Of  course  there  is  much  in  our 
experience  of  volition  which  belongs  to  our  limitations — 
sometimes  even  to  our  animal  organisms.  There  is  some- 
times a  disposition  to  find  the  essence  of  will  in  the  sense 
of  effort — a  mere  matter  of  muscular  sensation.  But  that 
is  not  of  the  essence  of  will.  Our  volition  (as  we  know 
it)  is  the  only  experience  which  enables  us  to  give  concrete 
embodiment  to  the  purely  a  priori  conception  of  Causality, 
which  includes  both  final  cause  and  efficient  cause.  We 

J    Not  that  in  this  case  then;  is  anv  real  contradiction. 


380  H.   RASHDALL  vm 

know  why  a  thing  happened  when  we  know  (i)  that  it 
realised  an  end  which  Reason  pronounces  to  have  value, 
and  (2)  what  was  the  force  or  (knowing  all  the  abuses  to 
which  that  word  is  liable),  I  will  say,  the  real  being  which 
turned  that  end  from  a  mere  idea  into  an  actuality,  i.e. 
the  actual  experience  of  some  soul.  Doubtless  my 
definition  involves  a  circle  :  for  Causality  or  activity  is 
an  ultimate  category  which  cannot  be  defined.  If  Idealism 
be  true,  this  force  or  active  reality  must  be  some  kind  of 
conscious  being :  such  an  active  consciousness  as  we  are 
aware  of  in  ourselves  will  supply  us  with  at  least  some- 
thing more  than  a  merely  symbolical  expression  for  the 
union  of  force  or  power  or  activity  with  a  consciously 
apprehended  end.  Even  apart  from  this  argument  from 
Causality,  the  mere  fact  that  mind,  as  we  know  it,  is 
always  will  as  well  as  thought,  would  be  a  sufficient  ground 
for  inferring  by  analogy  that,  if  God  be  the  supreme 
source  of  being  or  Mind,  He  too  must  be  Will  no  less 
than  Thought. 

§  1 3.  (d}  The  idealistic  argument,  as  here  stated  or  rather 
presupposed,  leads  us  up  to  a  view  of  the  Universe  which 
finds  all  reality  in  souls  and  their  experiences.  It  remains 
to  ask  what  is  the  relation  between  these  souls  or  spirits. 
To  account  for  the  world  as  a  mere  object  of  knowledge, 
we  have  found  it  necessary  to  regard  one  of  these  spirits, 
God,  as  omniscient  and  eternal,  and  therefore  as  sui 
generis,  incomparably  superior  to  human  intelligences  with 
their  partial  and  limited  knowledge  and  still  more  limited 
capacities  of  action.  We  have  found  it  necessary,  more- 
over, to  regard  Him  as  causative — as  causing  those  ex- 
periences of  the  other  souls  of  which  their  own  wills  are 
not  the  cause,  and  (since  no  human  will  is  ever  the  whole 
cause  of  anything)  as  co-operating  in  some  sense  with 
whatever  causality  is  exercised  by  human  wills.  What, 
then,  are  we  to  say  as  to  the  relation  between  the  supreme 
volitional  Intelligence  and  other  volitional  intelligences  ? 
Many  will  be  disposed  to  think  that  the  course  of  my 
argument  points  in  the  direction  of  Pluralism  —  to  the 
hypothesis  of  many  independent,  undcrived  intelligences, 


vin    PERSONALITY:  HUMAN   AND  DIVINE   381 

coeternal  and  uncreated.  I  have  no  a  priori  objection 
or  prejudice  whatever  against  such  a  view  if  there  were 
sufficient  grounds  for  postulating  it.  But  I  do  not  think 
that  our  argument  necessitates  any  such  consequence.  In 
the  first  place  Pluralism  fails  to  account  for  the  unity  of 
the  world,  not  merely  for  the  experienced  uniformity  of 
nature  (which  is  a  postulate  of  Science  but  no  necessity 
of  thought)  but  for  the  mere  fact  of  the  likeness 
between  different  minds,  the  fact  that  we  all  think 
in  the  same  categories,  etc.  This  might,  indeed,  be 
regarded  as  an  ultimate  fact  which  cannot  be 
accounted  for,  but  it  tends  to  make  the  unity  of  the 
world  not  only  hard  to  account  for  but  hard  to  understand. 
In  the  second  place,  our  souls  in  all  their  experiences  are 
dependent  upon  modifications  of  a  bodily  organism  which 
from  our  point  of  view  must  be  regarded  as  due  to  the 
thought  and  will  of  God  :  the  dependence  upon  God  of 
the  bodily  organism  carries  with  it  the  dependence  upon 
Him  also  of  the  spirits  to  which  such  bodies  are  organic. 
To  suppose  the  souls  independent  of  God  would  involve 
(as  it  seems  to  me)  either  the  monstrous  idea  of  a  purely 
casual  coincidence  between  the  retreating  brow  and  the 
limited  intelligence  or  a  no  less  appalling  and  arbitrary 
scheme  of  pre-established  harmony.  And  thirdly,  the 
whole  contrast  between  the  known  limits  of  human 
knowledge  and  the  inferred  Omniscience  of  God  prepares 
us  by  analogy  for  a  corresponding  contrast  between  an 
eternal  or  unoriginated  mind  and  minds  which  are 
originated  and  dependent.  The  mind  whose  knowledge 
is  partial  and  progressive  may  well  have  a  beginning. 
Experience  gives  us  no  evidence  for  pre-existence,  and  we 
are  not  justified  in  going  beyond  experience  except  in  so 
far  as  is  necessary  to  explain  experience.  Moreover,  pre- 
existence  is  a  hypothesis  which  presupposes  the  waters  of 
Lethe  or  some  similar  Mythology.1  I  infer,  then,  that  the 
human  mind,  like  all  minds,  is  derived  from  the  one 
supreme  Mind.  As  attempts  to  express  this  relation,  I 

1   I  do  not  mean  that  such  a  conception  is  impossible  or  absurd,  but  that  it  is 
gratuitous. 


382  H.   RASHDALL  vm 

have  no  objection  to  the  fashionable  phrases  "  partial 
communication  to  us  of  the  divine  thought,"  "  partial 
reproduction  of  the  divine  consciousness,"  "  limited  modes 
of  the  universal  self-consciousness,"  "  emanations  from  the 
divine  Mind,"  and  so  on,  provided  they  are  not  used  to 
evade  the  admission  that  the  fact  of  such  reproductions 
occurring  must  be  regarded  as  no  less  due  to  the  divine 
will  than  the  first  appearance  and  the  gradual  development 
of  the  bodily  organism  by  which  those  reproductions  are 
conditioned.  But  I  do  not  know  that  such  expressions 
are  any  improvement  upon  the  old  biblical  phrase  that 
man  was  created  by  God  in  his  own  image  and  after  his 
own  likeness. 

§14.  (e)  Leaving  the  question  of  origin,  how  are  we 
to  conceive  the  relation  between  God  and  man  when  the 
latter  is  once  in  being  ?  Having  repudiated  the  pluralistic 
tendency  to  make  other  souls  independent  of  God,  I  must 
go  on  to  justify  Pluralism  as  against  Monism  in  its  view 
of  the  separateness  and  distinctness  of  the  individual  self- 
consciousness  from  God  when  once  in  existence  and  so 
long  as  it  exists.  The  argument  by  which  Monism  makes 
the  human  soul  (in  some  one  of  innumerable  different 
meanings  or  shades  of  meaning)  a  part  or  an  element  of, 
or  aspect  of,  and  therefore  in  some  sense  as  identical  with 
the  Divine,  seems  to  me  to  be  grounded  upon  one  supreme 
fallacy.  I  detect  that  fallacy  in  almost  every  line  of 
almost  every  Hegelian  thinker  (if  I  may  say  so  with  all 
respect)  whom  I  have  read,1  and  of  many  who  object 
to  that  designation.  That  fallacy  is  the  assumption 
that  what  constitutes  existence  for  others  is  the  same 
as  what  constitutes  existence  for  self.2  A  thing  is  as 

1  Of  course;  this  does   not   apply   to   the  individualistic   Hegelianism  of  Mr. 
McTaggart  which  he  has  shown  strong  reason  for  believing  was  the  Hegelianism 
of  Hegel. 

2  This   charge  could,    I   believe,    be   illustrated  over   and   over   again  out    of 
Professor  Royce's  The  World  and  the  Individual,  the  ablest  attempt  yet  made 
to  think  out  the  theory  of  a  common   Consciousness  including  individual  selves. 
The  confusion    is   fostered   by   the  author's  tendency  to   speak   of  the  self  as  a 
"  meaning."      "  I,  the  individual,  am  what  I  am  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  my 
intention,  my  meaning,  my  wish,  my  desire,  my  hope,  my  life,  stand  in  contrast 
to  those  of  any  other  individual  "  (loc.  fit.  p.  426).      Here  it  is  not  clear  whether 
'  the  meaning '   implies  the  meaning  as  forming  the  content  of  knowledge  or  the 


viii    PERSONALITY:  HUMAN   AND   DIVINE   383 

it  is  known  :  its  esse  is  to  be  known  :  what  it  is  for  the 
experience  of  spirits,  is  its  whole  reality :  it  is  that 
and  nothing  more.  But  the  esse  of  a  person  is  to  know 
himself,  to  be  for  himself,  to  feel  and  to  think  for  himself, 
to  act  on  his  own  knowledge,  and  to  know  that  he  acts. 
In  dealing  with  persons,  therefore,  there  is  an  unfathom- 
able gulf  between  knowledge  and  reality.  What  a  person 
is  for  himself  is  entirely  unaffected  by  what  he  is  for  any 
other,  so  long  as  he  does  not  know  what  he  is  for  that 
other.  No  knowledge  of  that  person  by  another,  however 
intimate,  can  ever  efface  the  distinction  between  the  mind 
as  it  is  for  itself,  and  the  mind  as  it  is  for  another.  The 
essence  of  a  person  is  not  what  he  is  for  another,  but  what 
he  is  for  himself.  It  is  there  that  \\isprindpium  individua- 
tionis  is  to  be  found — in  what  he  is,  when  looked  at  from 
the  inside.  All  the  fallacies  of  our  anti- individualist 
thinkers  come  from  talking  as  though  the  essence  of  a 
person  lay  in  what  can  be  known  about  him,  and  not  in 
his  own  knowledge,  his  own  experience  of  himself.  And 
that,  in  turn,  arises  largely  from  the  assumption  that 
knowledge,  without  feeling  or  will,  is  the  whole  of  Reality. 
Of  course,  I  do  not  mean  to  deny  that  a  man  is  made 
what  he  is  (in  part)  by  his  relations  to  other  persons, 
but  no  knowledge  of  these  relations  by  any  other  than 
himself  is  a  knowledge  which  can  constitute  what  he  is 
to  himself.  However  much  I  know  of  another  man,  and 
however  much  by  the  likeness  of  my  own  experience, 
by  the  acuteness  of  the  interpretation  which  I  put  upon 
his  acts  and  words,  by  the  sympathy  which  I  feel  for 
him — I  may  know  of  another's  inner  life,  that  life  is  for 

meaning  as  forming  part  of  the  individual's  consciousness.  If  the  former,  there 
is  nothing  intrinsically  absurd  in  the  supposition  that  two  individuals  should  have 
exactly  the  same  meaning,  and  yet  remain  two.  Or  if  they  do  not,  there  is  no 
difference  between  them,  and  the  (even  apparent)  individuality  of  the  individual 
self  disappears.  In  the  latter  case  there  will  be  as  many  meanings  as  there  are 
selves,  no  matter  how  much  alike  they  may  be.  Professor  Royce  seems  habitually 
to  ignore  exactly  the  differentia  of  Consciousness.  He  constantly  assumes  that 
to  be  in  relation  with  another  being  is  to  be  identical  with  that  being  (just  as  a 
thing  undoubtedly  is  constituted  by  its  relations),  that  the  individuality  of  the  self 
differs  in  nothing  from  the  individuality  of  a  star  (I.e.  p.  432),  that  the  individuality 
of  the  self  lies  in  what  it  is  for  God.  ("  The  self  is  in  itself  real.  It  possesses 
individuality.  And  it  possesses  this  individuality,  as  we  have  seen,  in  God  and 
for  God,"  I.e.  p.  433.) 


384  H.   RASHDALL  vm 

ever  a  thing  quite  distinct  from  me  the  knower  of  it.1 
My  toothache  is  for  ever  my  toothache  only,2  and  can 
never  become  yours ;  and  so  is  my~Iove  for  another 
person,  however  passionately  I  may  desire — to  use  that 
metaphor  of  poets  and  rhetoricians  which  imposes  upon 
mystics,  and  even  upon  philosophers — to  become  one  with 
the  object  of  my  love :  for  that  love  would  cease  to  be  if 
the  aspiration  were  literally  fulfilled.  If  per  impossibile 
two  disembodied  spirits,  or  selves,  were  to  go  through 
exactly  the  same  experiences — knew,  felt,  and  willed 
always  alike — still  they  would  be  two,  and  not  one.3  The 
fact  that  we  should  not  be  able  to  say  anything  about 
the  difference  could  not  alter  the  fact  ;  for  with  persons 
(once  again)  what  they  are  for  the  knowledge  of  others 
does  not  constitute  the  whole  of  their  reality.  But  each 
of  them  would  know  the  difference  between  his  own  ex- 
perience and  his  knowledge  of  the  other's  experience  ; 
and  each  of  us,  being  a  separate  self,  would  know  that 
each  of  these  two  must  know  it,  but  we  could  not  know 
what  it  is  except  in  so  far  as  each  of  us  might  know  that 

1  I  cannot  here  further  analyse  how  we  obtain  this  knowledge. 

2  Mr.  Bradley  contends  that  the  Absolute  may  feel  all  our  pains  and  yet  not 
feel  them  as  pain  (like  the  discord  in  Music  which  only  increases  the  harmony), 
but  then  /  do  feel  it  as  pain.      Could  any  defence  give  away  the  case  more  hope- 
lessly, or  show  more  convincingly  that  I  feel  something  which  is  not  the  Absolute's 
feeling? 

3  If  this  is  not  self-evident,  let  me  add  the  following  argument.      It  is  admitted 
that  two  such  spirits  might  have  like  but  not  identical  experiences  (i.e.  experience 
in  which  there  was  some  identity  but  some  difference)  without  ceasing  to  be  two. 
Let  us  suppose  the  content  of  the  consciousness  of   each  to  become  gradually 
more  and  more  like  that  of  the  other,  including  all  the  time  the  knowledge  of  the 
other's  existence.      Can  it  be  seriously  contended  that  as  the  last  remaining  differ- 
ence disappeared,  that  consciousness  in  A  of  not  being  B  would  suddenly  disappear 
too  ?     Of  course  it  may  be  said  that  the  consciousness  of  not  being  B  is  part  of 
the  content  of  A's  consciousness.      If  so,  of  course  the  case  supposed  could  not 
possibly  arise,  and  the  difficulty  disappears.      But  still  the  difference  between  A 
and  B  would  be  absolutely  unrecognisable  and  indescribable  for  any  other  con- 
sciousness, although  such  a  consciousness  might  know  that  there  were  two  beings 
with  such  contents  of  consciousness  identical  but  for  the  knowledge  by  each  that 
he  was  not  the  other.      Or  again  let  me  take  the  case  of  two  consciousnesses  not 
knowing  of  each  other's  existence,  but  having  (as  a  third  mind  is  aware)  nearly 
identical   experiences.      Let   us  suppose   two  very  elementary  minds,   whose   ex- 
perience should  be  confined  as  nearly  as  is  possible  to  present  sensation.      Let 
us  suppose  the  pain   they  suffer  to   become  more   and   more  alike.      Will   it    be 
gravely  said    that   if  for   a  moment   the   throbs  which   filled   each  consciousm-ss 
l>ecame  the  same  (i.e.  same  in  content,  as  known  but  not  felt  by  the  third  mind), 
that  mind  would  have  to  pronounce  that  there  wore  two  throbs  no  longer,  but 
only  one? 


vni    PERSONALITY:   HUMAN   AND   DIVINE   385 

it  is  like,  or  analogous  to,  the  difference  between  what  he 
is  for  himself,  and  what  he  knows  of  the  self  that  seems 
to  be  likest  him. 

§15.  Mr.  Bradley's  objections  to  ascribing  reality  to  the 
Self  really,  I  venture  to  think,  spring  in  great  part  from  the 
same  root.  That  the  self  includes  the  not-self  as  known  to 
me  is  true  enough.  So  long  as  the  "not-self"  is  a  mere 
thing,  it  has  no  reality  apart  from  what  it  is  to  me  and 
other  selves.  What  it  is  for  me,  is  in  a  sense  part  of  me. 
When  the  not-self  is  a  person,  the  knowledge  of  that  self 
is  part  of  my  experience,  and  so  (if  you  like  it)  in  a  sense 
part  of  me  ;  but  that  does  not  show  that  there  is  not  a 
something  which  he  is  for  himself,  which  is  no  part  at 
all  of  me,  and  which  is  as  real  as  I  am.  In  so  far  as 
I  know  what  he  is  in  his  own  self-knowledge,  of  course 
there  is  an  identity  between  what  he  is  for  me  (part  of 
my  ego)  and  what  he  is  for  himself  (part  of  his  ego),  but 
this  identity  is  a  mere  abstraction,  the  identity  of  a  Uni- 
versal. Mr.  Bradley  cannot  usually  be  accused  of  mistak- 
ing such  abstractions  for  reality.  Of  course  if  "  real "  is 
to  mean  "out  of  all  relation  to  anything  outside  itself," 
then  it  is  obvious  on  the  face  of  it — without  500  pages 
of  argument — that  nothing  can  be  real  except  the  whole. 
But  that  is  not  the  usual  sense  of  "  real,"  and  if  the  words 
be  used  in  other  than  their  usual  sense,  Mr.  Bradley's 
paradoxes  sink  into  something  not  so  very  far  removed 
from  platitudes.  Undoubtedly  the  self  is  not  what  it  is 
apart  from  its  relations  to  other  selves  ;  but,  unless  those 
relations  to  other  selves  as  they  are  for  other  are  the  whole 
of  its  being,  the  self  may  be  real  without  being  the  whole 
of  Reality.  It  is  only  in  the  case  of  a  thing  that  its 
relations  to  some  other  mind  as  known  to  that  other  con- 
stitute the  whole  of  its  reality.  If  "reality"  be  taken  to 
mean  self-sufficing  reality,  a  being  underived  from  and 
independent  of  all  other  beings,  we  may  admit  that  such 
reality  cannot  be  ascribed  to  the  finite  self,  and  can  only 
be  ascribed  to  the  whole — to  the  whole  kingdom  of  selves 
taken  in  their  relation  to  one  another  and  to  God,  who  is 
one  of  the  selves  and  the  source  of  them.  We  do  not 

2  C 


386  H.  RASHDALL 


VIII 


get  to  any  fuller  or  deeper  Reality  by  supposing  an 
existence  in  which  God  or  the  Absolute  no  longer  dis- 
tinguishes himself  from  the  selves,  or  the  selves  from 
God.  Without  any  such  unintelligible  confusion  there  will 
remain  a  very  real  sense  in  which  the  being  of  the 
originated  souls  may  be  regarded  as  derived  from,  and 
even  if  you  like,  therefore,  in  the  sense  of  forming  objects 
of  the  divine  thought,  included  in  the  Divine  Being.  But 
if  we  use  such  language,  we  must  make  it  plain  that  the 
knowledge  of  the  finite  self  by  God  does  not  exhaust  its 
being  as  is  the  case  with  the  mere  object  It  is  the 
knowledge  of  them  that  is  in  God.  God  must  know  the 
self  as  a  self  which  has  a  consciousness,  an  experience, 
a  will  which  is  its  own — that  is,  as  a  being  which  is  not 
identical  with  the  knowledge  that  He  has  of  it. 

In  short,  all  the  conclusions  which  are  applicable  to 
each  particular  self  in  his  relation  to  another  seem  to  be 
equally  applicable  to  the  relations  between  God  and  any 
other  Spirit.  Undoubtedly  God  may,  must  have  an 
infinitely  deeper  and  completer  knowledge  of  every  one 
of  us  than  any  one  of  us  has  of  another — nay,  a  pro- 
founder  knowledge  of  each  of  us  than  each  of  us  has  of 
himself,  for  each  of  us  forgets  ;  each  of  us  knows  his  past 
self  only  by  means  of  abstractions — abstract  generalities 
which  (as  Mr.  Bradley  has  taught  us)  are  so  far  off  from 
the  realities — the  half-remembered  half-forgotten  colour 
or  sound,  joy  or  sorrow  which  they  symbolise  ;  still  less 
does  he  know  all  his  yet  unrealised  capacities  or  poten- 
tialities. Each  of  us  is  but  imperfectly  personal.  God  alone 
(as  Lotze  maintained)  fully  realises  the  ideal  of  person- 
ality ;  and  that  higher  personality — that  complete  know- 
ledge of  self — must  carry  with  it  much  more  knowledge 
of  other  selves  than  to  us  is  possible.  How  God  knows 
what  I  feel  without  having  actually  felt  the  like,  I  do  not 
know:  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  supposition  so  inherently 
self-contradictory  as  there  is  in  the  idea  that  God  feels  what 
I  feel  at  this  moment  and  yet  that  there  is  only  one  feeling 
at  this  moment  and  not  two.  The  only  analogy  that 
seems  available  is  the  fact  that  I  can  know  what  I  once 


vin    PERSONALITY:  HUMAN  AND  DIVINE   387 

felt,  though  I  feel  it  no  longer.  Doubtless  God  cannot  be 
thought  of  as  attaining  his  knowledge  of  other  selves  by 
the  clumsy  processes  of  inference  or  analogy  by  which 
we  so  imperfectly  enter  into  the  consciousness  of  others  : 
doubtless  pleasure,  pain,  colour,  sound,  volition  must  be 
in  God  something  different  from  what  they  are  to  us. 
And  yet  even  for  God  such  a  knowledge  of  other  selves 
must  be  in  some  way  dependent  upon  a  likeness  (i.e. 
partial  identity  of  content)  between  his  experience  and 
ours.  God  must  be  thought  of  as  feeling  pleasure — yes, 
and  (as  far  as  I  see)  pain  also,  or  something  like  pain, 
as  loving  persons  and  hating  evil,  as  willing  the  good 
and  so  on.  Say,  if  you  will,  that  such  terms  applied  to 
God  are  mere  symbols.  But  then  so  (I  should  contend), 
in  a  sense,  is  "  thought."  God's  thought  can  as  little  be 
exactly  what  our  thought  is  as  our  joys  and  sorrows  can 
be  exactly  what  his  are.  Yet  imperfect  knowledge  is 
still  knowledge,  or  we  should  have  to  confess  that  we 
know  nothing  at  all.  And  it  is  arbitrary  out  of  the 
three  distinguishable  but  inseparable  and  mutually 
dependent  aspects  or  activities  of  self-conscious  being 
as  known  to  us — will,  thought,  feeling — to  select  one, 
namely  thought  (which  by  itself  is  a  mere  abstraction), 
and  to  call  that  God.  I  need  not  further  insist  on  the 
arbitrariness  of  this  procedure :  the  imperishable  value 
of  Mr.  Bradley's  "  Appearance  and  Reality "  lies  largely 
in  its  exposure  of  it.  God,  if  He  is  to  be  known  at  all,  must 
be  known  as  a  Trinity — Potentia,  Sapientia,  Bonitas  or 
Voluntas,  as  the  Schoolmen  (in  this  matter  so  much  more 
rational  and  intelligible  than  later  theologians)  consistently 
maintained.1  God  must  then,  it  would  seem,  know  other 
selves  by  the  analogy  of  what  He  is  Himself ;  He  could 
not  (it  is  reasonable  to  infer)  have  created  beings  wholly 
unlike  Himself.  His  knowledge  of  other  selves  may  be 
perfect  knowledge  without  his  ever  being  or  becoming 
the  selves  which  He  knows.  His  being  must,  if  this  is 

1  I  only  suggest  an  analogy  between  the  traditional  doctrine  in  its  scholastic 
and  philosophical  form  and  that  \\hich  I  suggest.  To  make  them  identical,  \ve 
must  take  Potentia  to  =  Will,  and  include  the  element  of  feeling  in  Bonitas. 


388  H.  RASHDALL  vm 

all  that  you  mean  by  the  phrase,  "  penetrate  "  their  inmost 
being.  But  to  talk  of  one  self-conscious  being  including 
or  containing  in  himself  or  being  identical  with  other 
selves  is  to  use  language  which  is  (as  it  appears  to  me) 
wholly  meaningless  and  self-contradictory,  for  the  essence 
of  being  a  self  is  to  distinguish  oneself  from  other  selves. 
Such  theories  are  just  one  instance  of  that  all-fertile  source 
of  philosophical  error — the  misapplication  of  spacial  meta- 
phors. Minds  are  not  Chinese  boxes  which  can  be  put 
'  inside '  one  another.  And  if  it  be  answered  that  the 
higher  Unity  that  is  to  transcend  the  difference  between 
God  and  other  selves,  between  selves  and  things,  must 
therefore  not  be  a  self,  I  answer  that  we  know  of  no  form 
of  ultimately  real  being  except  the  self.  To  talk  of  other 
"  beings  "  which  are  not  selves  is  as  unmeaning  as  to  talk 
about  beings  which  do  not  exist.  That  being  which  is 
not  for  a  self  is  a  self;  and  it  is  only  in  a  restricted  and 
popular  and  not  in  a  strictly  philosophical  sense  that  'being' 
can  be  attributed  to  that  which  merely  is  for  other.  The 
real  is  that  which  is  for  itself,  and  every  spirit  or  con- 
sciousness (in  its  measure  and  degree)  is  for  itself. 

§  16.  Is  the  question  raised  "  How  can  one  Self  know 
another  self  not  merely  as  it  is  for  other  but  as  it  is  for 
itself?"  It  might  be  enough  to  plead  that  the  difficulty  is 
not  made  one  whit  less  difficult  by  the  theory  of  a  universal 
Consciousness  which  includes  all  particular  selves.  Even 
if  this  theory  helped  to  explain  how  the  Universal 
self  knows  the  particular  self  and  the  particular  self  the 
Universal  self,  it  would  not  explain  how  one  particular 
self  knows  another  particular  self.  You  may  say  that 
each  particular  self  really  is  each  other  particular  self,  and 
is  therefore  inside  it  and  not  outside  it.  But  then  how- 
does  one  self  appear  to  be  outside  the  other  ?  Where  is 
the  distinction  between  them  ?  And  why  does  not  one 
self  not  know  all  about  each  and  every  other  self  as  it 
is  for  itself?  I  cannot  really  profess  much  sympathy 
with  the  supposed  difficulty  about  explaining  how  we 
know  other  Selves.  It  seems  to  me  an  ultimate  part  of 
our  experience  that  from  our  self-knowledge  we  do  by 


VIM    PERSONALITY:  HUMAN  AND  DIVINE   389 

inference  infer  the  existence  of  other  selves  which  are  for 
themselves  as  well  as  for  us  ;  and  Philosophy  has  nothing 
to  do  but  to  record  and  systematise  the  way  we  actually 
think.  In  my  thought  the  idea  of  a  being  which  is  for 
itself  as  well  as  for  me  is  quite  clearly  distinguishable 
from  that  of  a  being  which  is  only  for  me.  The  fact  that 
I  think  it,  is  the  only  possible  argument  to  show  that  it 
can  be  thought.  Of  course  it  is  possible  to  deny  the 
validity  of  the  inferences  by  which  I  reach  this  result. 
I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  this  question  further,  but  will 
only  say  that  Solipsism  can  be  made  just  as  plausible 
from  one  philosophical  point  of  view  as  from  another  : 
like  Scepticism  it  admits  of  no  decisive  refutation,  but 
carries  no  conviction.  The  only  philosophies  that  can 
justly  be  taunted  with  a  tendency  towards  Solipsism  are 
the  systems  which  fail  to  distinguish  between  know- 
ledge and  other  aspects  of  being,  especially  feeling  ;  and 
under  this  category  may  be  placed  not  only  the  Sensation- 
alism which  merges  knowledge  in  feeling,  but  also  the 
Intellectualism  which  merges  feeling  in  knowledge.  If  I 
cannot  distinguish  between  my  feeling  and  my  knowledge 
that  I  feel,  naturally  I  cannot  know  that  another  feels  ; 
and  when  we  have  abstracted  from  my  total  consciousness 
the  feeling-element,  the  knowledge-element  taken  by 
itself  can  be  very  plausibly  identified  with  the  mere 
abstract  content  of  knowledge,  which  is  no  doubt 
precisely  the  same  for  any  number  of  Selves  who  think 
the  same  thing,  and  therefore  the  same  for  God  and  for 
the  other  minds  whom  God  knows  but  is  not.  It  may  be 
plausibly  identified  with  it,  but  it  is  not  really  the  same 
thing.  For  there  will  still  remain  the  difference  between 
the  content  of  my  knowledge  and  the  actual  knowing 
consciousness.  The  knowledge  taken  apart  from  the 
feeling  and  the  willing  is  no  doubt  an  abstraction  ;  it  is 
only  an  aspect  of  the  single  Ego  that  feels,  wills,  and 
knows.  The  confusion  has  arisen  largely  from  the 
ambiguity  of  the  word  "thought."  Thought  may  mean 
"  the  content  that  is  thought,"  or  it  may  mean  "  the 
consciousness  which  thinks."  The  content  of  two  people's 


390  H.   RASHDALL  vm 

thought  may  be  the  same :  but  the  consciousness  that 
thinks  in  the  two  cases  is  different.  Every  experience  as 
such  is  unique :  the  content  abstracted  from  the  experi- 
ence itself  is  always  a  universal,  and  may  therefore  be 
common  to  any  number  of  such  experiences  as  well  as  to 
minds  which  share  the  knowledge  without  having  had 
similar  experiences.1  And  it  is  not  only  the  content  of 
another's  experience  that  I  can  know,  but  the  fact  that 
there  is  a  real  self  which  has  that  experience.  Even  in 
the  case  of  selves  with  precisely  similar  experiences,  I 
can  know  that  there  were  one,  two,  or  more  of  such 
beings.  But  it  is  not  my  knowledge  of  each  self  that 
makes  it  a  self;  neither  does  my  inability  to  recognise 
any  but  a  numerical  difference  between  them  telescope 
them  into  one.  The  difficulty  has  been  largely  manu- 
factured by  the  habit  of  philosophers  of  speaking  of  all 
that  I  know  as  a  "  non-ego  "  without  taking  any  account 
of  the  difference  between  the  "non-ego"  which  is  an 
"  ego  "  and  the  "  non-ego  "  which  is  only  what  I  or  other 
minds  know  about  it. 

§17.  Do  you  say  that  all  this  makes  God  finite  ?  Be  it 
so,  if  you  will.  Everything  that  is  real  is  in  that  sense 
finite.  God  is  certainly  limited  by  all  other  beings  in  the 
Universe,  that  is  to  say,  by  other  selves,  in  so  far  as  He 
is  not  those  selves.  He  is  not  limited,  as  I  hold,  by 
anything  which  does  not  ultimately  proceed  from  his  own 
Nature  or  Will  or  Power.  That  power  is  doubtless 
limited,  and  in  the  frank  recognition  of  this  limitation  of 

1  Often  of  course,  as  Mr.  Bradley  has  shown  so  impressively,  this  generalised 
content  reproduces  or  represents  but  very  imperfectly  the  actual  experience — even 
in  the  case  of  the  thinker's  own  past  experiences.  That  is  particularly  of  course 
with  pleasures  and  pains,  the  memory  of  which  is  not  necessarily  pleasant  or 
painful  at  all.  Vet  it  is  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  we  cannot  know  in  any 
degree  what  a  past  pleasure  or  pain  was  like,  and  equally  so  that  we  know  nothing 
of  what  other  people's  pleasures  and  pains  are  to  them.  Pleasure  and  pain  them- 
selves lx:long  to  the  uniqueness  of  consciousness  :  their  generalised  content  may 
be  known  to  many  minds,  and  the  fact  that  no  pleasure  necessarily  enters  into  the 
idea  of  a  pleasure,  and  that  (still  more  certainly)  no  pain  into  the  idea  of  a  pain  is 
an  impressive  exhibition  of  the  difference  between  knowledge  and  reality.  The 
champions  of  an  inclusive  consciousness  have  never  found  a  difficulty  in  the 
uniqueness  of  two  exactly  similar  experiences  of  the  same  person  (experiences  of 
which  the  content  is  the  same)  because  of  the  difference  in  the  time-relations  of 
the  two  :  but  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  time  to  exclude  the  simultaneous 
existence  of  two  or  more  unique  experiences. 


vni    PERSONALITY:  HUMAN  AND  DIVINE   391 

power  lies  the  only  solution  of  the  problem  of  Evil  which 
does  not  either  destroy  the  goodness  of  God  or  destroy 
moral  distinctions  altogether.  He  is  limited  by  his  own 
eternal,  if  you  like  "  necessary  "  nature — a  nature  which 
wills  eternally  the  best  which  that  nature  has  in  it  to 
create.  The  limitation  is  therefore  what  Theologians  have 
often  called  a  self-limitation :  provided  only  that  this  limita- 
tion must  not  be  regarded  as  an  arbitrary  self-limitation, 
but  as  arising  from  the  presence  of  that  idea  of  the  best 
that  is  eternally  present  to  a  will  whose  potentialities  are 
limited  —  that  idea  of  the  best  which  to  Platonising 
Fathers  and  Schoolmen  became  the  Second  Person  of  the 
Holy  Trinity.  The  truth  of  the  world  is  then  neither 
Monism,  in  the  pantheising  sense  of  the  word,  nor 
Pluralism  :  the  world  is  neither  a  single  Being,  nor  many 
co-ordinate  and  independent  Beings,  but  a  One  Mind  who 
gives  rise  to  many.  We  may  of  course,  if  we  choose, 
describe  the  whole  collection  of  these  beings  as  One 
Reality,  with  enough  capital  letters  to  express  the  unction 
which  that  numeral  appears  to  carry  with  it  for  some 
minds  ;  but  after  all  the  Reality,  whether  eternally  or 
only  at  one  particular  stage  of  its  development,  is  a 
community  of  Persons. 

§  18.  The  embarrassment  of  my  language  at  this  point 
will  make  it  plain  that  I  am  getting  myself  entangled 
in  another  question  more  difficult,  and  more  momentous 
even  in  its  ultimate  implications,  than  the  question  of 
Personality — that  is,  the  question  of  Time.  Is  Time 
objective  or  subjective  ?  Is  the  Absolute  in  time,  or  is 
time  in  the  Absolute  ?  A  hasty  or  unconsidered  treat- 
ment of  such  questions  would  be  useless.  I  have 
endeavoured,  while  assuming  that  the  individual  self 
is  in  time,  to  avoid  language  which  is  necessarily  in- 
consistent with  the  position  that  God  is  "  out  of  time." 
I  will  only  add  here  that  a  full  investigation  of  this 
question  might  lead  us  to  the  conclusion,  that,  just  as  we 
have  seen  reason  to  insist  that  any  sense  in  which  the 
divine  knowledge  penetrates  the  individual  consciousness 
must  be  a  sense  which  leaves  to  the  individual  his  full 


392  H.  RASHDALL  vm 

individuality,  personality,  reality,  so  any  sense  in  which 
we  might  find  it  necessary  to  admit  that  the  divine 
knowledge  transcends  the  distinctions  of  past,  present, 
and  future,  any  sense  in  which  God  is  (to  use  the 
medieval  expression)  si4pra  tenipus  must  be  a  sense  which 
is  compatible  with  leaving  to  the  time-consciousness  in 
which  individuals  undoubtedly  live,  true  reality  likewise, 
though  there  may  and  must  undoubtedly  be  aspects  of 
this  reality  which  we  do  not  fully  understand. 

§19.  The  indisposition  to  admit  that  souls  have  an 
existence  which  is  not  merged  in  that  of  God,  seems  to 
arise  largely  from  the  fact  that  philosophers  have  imposed 
upon  themselves  and  others  by  the  trick  of  simply  assuming 
(without  proof)  an  identity  between  God  and  the  philo- 
sophical "  Absolute,"  and  then  arguing  that  if  any  of  the 
attributes  ascribed  by  theology  or  religion  or  common- 
sense  to  God  are  inconsistent  with  what  is  implied  in  the 
conception  of  "  the  Absolute,"  no  such  being  as  the  God 
of  Religion  can  exist.  Personality  is  undoubtedly  incon- 
sistent with  the  idea  of  the  Absolute  or  Infinite  Being, 
and  therefore  it  is  assumed  that  God  is  not  personal. 
The  arguments  of  Idealism  really,  as  it  seems  to  me,  go 
to  prove  that  over  and  above  our  souls  there  does  exist 
such  a  Being  as  Theologians,  except  when  they  have 
unintelligently  aped  the  language  of  philosophies  not 
their  own,  have  commonly  understood  by  God.  The 
Absolute,  therefore,  if  we  must  have  a  phrase  which 
might  well  be  dispensed  with,  consists  of  God  and  the 
souls,  including,  of  course,  all  that  God  and  those  souls 
know  or  experience.  The  Absolute  is  not  a  simple 
aggregate  formed  of  these  spirits,  as  each  of  them  is  if 
taken  apart  from  the  rest,  but  a  society  in  which  each 
must  be  taken  with  all  its  relations  to  the  rest — as  being 
what  it  is  for  itself  together  with  what  it  is  for  other. 
This  leaves  quite  open  the  question  what  is  the  nature 
of  those  relations.  It  will  be  quite  as  true  that  'the 
Absolute  is  a  society '  in  our  view  as  it  is  in  the  view  of 
the  Pluralists  who  make  souls  coeternal  with  God,  or  as 
in  the  view  of  Mr.  McTaggart,  who  makes  Reality  consist 


vni    PERSONALITY:  HUMAN   AND  DIVINE   393 

of  eternal  souls  without  God.1  Only  in  our  view  God 
at  a  certain  point  of  time  caused  the  souls  to  exist ;  or 
(if  we  please)  by  an  eternal  act  causes  that  at  a  certain 
time  they  shall  appear  in  the  time-series.  The  Absolute, 
we  may  say,  becomes  a  Society  ;  or,  if  we  like  to  think 
of  everything  that  is  to  be  as  having  an  existence  already 
in  some  sense  in  the  Absolute,  we  may  say  that  the 
Absolute  eternally  is  a  God  who  persists  throughout  time 
(or,  if  it  be  so,  a  God  who  is  supra  tempus]  together  with 
selves  who  are  eternally  present  to  the  mind  of  God,  but 
who  begin  to  have  their  real  being,  in  accordance  with 
His  will,  at  particular  moments  of  time. 

1  I  have  very  much  sympathy  with  Mr.  McTaggart's  criticism  of  the  usual 
Hegelian  idea  of  God  as  a  consciousness  including  other  consciousnesses.  (See 
especially  Studies  in  Hegelian  Cosmology,  pp.  60,  61.)  I  must  not  attempt  to 
examine  his  position  now,  but  will  briefly  indicate  where  it  seems  to  me  defective. 
Besides  all  the  difficulties  involved  in  the  idea  of  pre-existent  souls,  it  is  open  to 
this  objection.  Mr.  McTaggart  (whatever  we  may  say  of  the  "  Pluralists  ")  feels 
that  the  world  must  be  a  Unity,  that  it  consists  not  merely  of  souls  but  of  related 
and  interconnected  souls  which  form  a  system.  But  a  system  for  whom  ?  The 
idea  of  a  system  which  is  not  "  for"  any  mind  at  all  is  not  open  to  an  Idealist  ; 
and  the  idea  of  a  world  each  part  of  which  is  known  to  some  mind  but  is  not 
known  as  a  whole  to  any  one  mind  is  almost  equally  difficult.  "Where  then,  in 
his  view,  is  the  Mind  that  knows  the  whole,  i.e.  the  whole  system  of  souls  with 
the  content  of  each  ?  The  difficulty  could  only  be  met  by  making  out  that  each 
soul  is  omniscient,  and  perhaps  this  is  really  Mr.  McTaggart's  meaning.  If  so, 
the  difficulty  of  making  each  soul  as  an  extra-temporal  reality  omniscient,  while 
as  occupying  a  position  in  the  time-series  it  is  all  the  time  ignorant  of  much,  is  one 
which  needs  no  pointing  out.  In  short,  I  hold  that  the  ordinary  idealistical 
arguments  for  a  Mind  which  knows  and  wills  the  whole  are  not  invalidated  by 
Mr.  McTaggart's  criticism  ;  while  I  can  only  cordially  accept  his  extraordinarily 
able  and  convincing  criticism  of  the  position  that  the  supreme  mind  is  the  whole. 


THE    END 


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